12 Tips to make your car beautiful without spending time or money

Almost everyone who has a car tends to take great care of their “metal baby”. But it is often difficult to keep the car clean, especially when we take into account that most of the services offered are very expensive. Fortunately, there are lots of tricks and recipes for you to keep your car shining, without running out of money.

And that’s what the awesome.club decided to do: find and describe 12 methods that help solve car problems that, at first sight, have no remedy.

Sometimes scratches appear due to simple manipulations: rubbing with keys or long nails. They don’t mean a problem when in small amount. But if they are already visible to the naked eye, we recommend using a simple solution to the problem: you will only need a polishing product and a microfiber cloth.

Wash and dry the affected surface thoroughly (this is important!) and get to work! To begin with, close the car and insert a plastic card in place so that the door handle does not move during the procedure. From here on, everything is simple: apply the product to the cloth and gently polish the space under the doorknob. Since the method is manual, without the use of special equipment, you will need patience and perseverance. To check the quality of the polish, use a strong flashlight, preferably an LED. When the scratches are gone, repeat the procedure one more time to ensure a good result.

Generally, the interior of current cars has an air filter that retains unpleasant odors. To be sure if there is a filter installed in your car, check your owner’s manual. If there really is one, the procedure is extremely simple: remove the filter and replace it with a new one recommended by the manufacturer. If your filter is dirty, you will definitely feel a difference in air quality.

If the appearance of the unpleasant odor has to do with the air conditioning, the use of an antiseptic spray can be useful. Turn on the car and the air conditioning, open all the windows and spray the air duct, which is located outside the car (between the hood and the windshield). Spraying should last about 30 seconds. Between 10 to 15 minutes later, the procedure must be repeated. Finally, the air conditioning must run for another 10 minutes so that all the sprayed product passes through the interior. Then you can turn off the engine.

Polishing the headlights is not only necessary for aesthetic reasons, but also for practicality: strong and effective lighting is very important, especially at night.

Place masking tape on the surface around the headlights so you don’t damage the paint or plastic. Clean and dry the area several times, as best you can: in the procedure you are going to do next, even a grain of sand can seriously damage the headlight, causing scratches. Run a water sandpaper over the entire area. Be careful, take your time, and move in only one direction. The surface must be wet. After finishing the process, use a less abrasive sandpaper and then a third, with even finer abrasion. Finally, polish the headlight with a special product so that it looks as good as new.

If you’re a perfectionist, you’ll have to deal with small interior details during a deep clean. To leave places like those shown in the photo above in ideal conditions, as well as other spaces that are difficult to access, we recommend using a cloth and a screwdriver. Roll the first over the second, apply a cleaning product to the cloth and carefully wipe over buttons, small crevices and dashboard elements.

The easiest way, which works for most light damage, is to heat the surface with a hair dryer. The procedure is very simple: the plastic is heated and the scratches close by themselves. In the end, they end up becoming much less visible or disappearing altogether.

Before the procedure, you must thoroughly wash the surface with detergent to remove all dirt. After completely drying all areas, turn on the hair dryer at low power and observe the result. If the plastic does not react, gradually increase the power and decrease the distance between the dryer and the panel. To avoid overheating, do not direct the air flow to a single point, but run the dryer from different angles. Then let the damaged place cool down and, if necessary, polish it.

This tip may seem strange, but if you have coffee filters at home, how about giving them another function? The tip really works, as coffee filters are made of a special material that leaves no residue. Unlike a regular cloth, the filter will not throw dust from one side of the panel to the other, but will collect it, reducing the need to constantly wipe the area, in an endless battle against dirt.

Returning to the issue of small spaces, it is worth noting the cleanliness of the internal ventilation. You’ve probably noticed how much dust a fan’s blades pick up, especially if the fan isn’t too far from an open window. In this case, exactly the same thing happens. Cleaning options are diverse, for every taste and possibility. You can use a brush, brush, a pencil with a specially cut piece of sponge placed on its tip, or a car vacuum if you have one.

In this case, it is very important not to wait too long: when the remains of insects that hit the car dry, they end up being absorbed by the paintwork, which makes the task of getting rid of the marks quite difficult. Not to mention that the coating can even be damaged. If a big beetle hit your car or if you had to cross a cloud of mosquitoes, we recommend that you carry out the processes described below in a maximum of one or two days.

To carry out the cleaning, you will need WD-40 and a cloth. As you probably know, WD-40 is an oily substance, so it will do an excellent job of softening the bug remnants and making them come off the paint. Just apply the product, wait 10 to 15 minutes for it to act absorbed and remove the stains by wiping with a cloth in circular motions. Particularly difficult areas can be rubbed with a scraper wrapped in a cloth, but be careful not to damage the coating. This method is not suitable for cleaning glass, since the liquid, being so oily, will be very difficult to wash. If you don’t have a special car window liquid, use a simple mixture of water and liquid soap. That should be enough.

In this case, it is also essential to eliminate the dirt as soon as possible, to avoid the onset of a chemical reaction between the acids contained in the feces and in the paint. There are several ways to solve the problem: using products that contain alkaline substances, with the help of sodium bicarbonate diluted in water, or even resorting to WD-40. But the simplest is ordinary water, in case you are in a situation where specific products are unavailable, and provided that cleaning is done immediately, and not after several days or weeks.

Place a piece of gauze over the stained surface, pour a little water over it and wait 10 to 15 minutes. When the dirt softens, gently remove it with a napkin, a cloth or even gauze. It is important to remove it gently, without using force, without rubbing so as not to compromise the painting or cause scratches. The application of baking soda or WD-40 follows the same principle: in the first case, pour a solution of baking soda over the gauze instead of ordinary water. In the second, apply the product directly on the dirt. Wait some time and remove it.

There are many options for getting rid of upholstery stains, but here we’ll talk about a universal tool that can come in handy for almost any problem. It will certainly come in handy if you don’t have a specific stain remover.

The mixture is made with two very simple elements: water and dish soap. Mix them in a 1:1 ratio. Put the resulting mixture in a spray bottle and apply it to the upholstery, keeping a distance of 15-20 cm. Then slowly scrub the surface with a soft brush and rinse with a microfiber cloth soaked in plain water. It’s best not to spray all the stains at once, but to move from one location to another, in order to make the cleaning process more effective and to prevent the mixture from having time to absorb and dry.

If you have pets and you like to take them for a ride in the car, you have certainly faced the problem of the large amount of hair that, after a trip, takes over all parts of the car, and is difficult to remove. The good news is that actually solving this is very simple. Even if you don’t have a car vacuum, a spray bottle of plain water and a window squeegee will suffice. Spray a little water on the surface for better adhesion and run the squeegee over the upholstery. Guaranteed cleaning.

Here, it takes a little more skill. But this tip will be useful not only for those who are passionate about using their own hands to transform something old into something completely renovated, but also for those who have leather upholstery with just a few discreet cracks.

The procedure is as follows: first, fill half a bucket with water and add 1/2 spoonful of detergent until it foams. Wash the upholstery in the affected area with this mixture, using a soft brush. Dry the surface thoroughly with a dry, lint-free cloth. Rub the leather with rubbing alcohol to get rid of excess grease, then check again to make sure everything is really dry. Polish the surface using fine sandpaper until any raised edges and other imperfections are completely gone. Apply leather sealant following the product’s instructions for use, and wait for it to dry completely. Then cover the space around the hit surface with masking tape, so you don’t get any extra spaces in the paint. Using special leather paint or polish in the appropriate shade, apply…