The 10 Car Care Commandments
Owning a car is serious business. You’ve got a world of hazards to deal with and a long line of garages who’d love to strip you of money. Follow these 10 car care commandments and you'll spend less time fixing it and more time playing with it.
1. Leave bird crap on thine paint
Most birds eat berries and seeds, making what they dump out of their backsides acidic. Leave it on your paintwork too long and not even a professional detailer will be able to get the marks out. Plus a crap-covered car looks like it’s owned by someone who couldn’t give a monkey’s about looking good. If you see bird crap, wipe it up asap!
2. Open thy door onto hard objects
Coming back to your car to find a dent courtesy of some little swine and his heavy door-opening hands is one of the frustrating experiences a motorist faces. Seriously, sexual performance issues don’t even register on the same scale. And it won’t have done the other car’s door any good either, so it’s bad news for everybody. Walls are even worse. If you open your door into a wall you might as well run a cheese grater down the end of it.
3. Allow spillages on thine upholstery
It’s bad enough when you spill tea or coffee in a car. Spill milk, beetroot juice or even Coke and you’re in trouble so deep you’ll need a snorkel. You might think you’ve got it all off (except the beetroot juice, which will just turn your upholstery pink) but a few days later, when it’s past ‘smelly’ and into the realms of ‘for the love of God, make it stop’, you’ll see that it’s better not to bring drinks into cars at all.
4. Neglect thy safety
Some people seem to have a problem with basic safety. I’m just talking about keeping tyre pressures where they should be, replacing tyres with good quality new ones when the current rubber is worn down to 3mm, and replacing headlight bulbs when they blow. This is easy stuff that could prevent a crash, not to mention saving you from a bumming by the plod. Nor is it actually as difficult to sort out as it is in the epic fail Halfords adverts you get before Top Gear on Dave.
5. Let thy fluids run out
If I had a pound for every time that I’ve seen a car’s windscreen wipers smudging layers of dirt across its screen because there’s no washer fluid left, I’d have at least £3. Car care doesn’t get any simpler, and anyone who lets it run out can rate themselves proudly on the same intellectual level as Forrest Gump. Life is like a box of chocolates, they say. You never know what you’re going to hit.
6. Covet thy neighbour’s motor
Your car should be something you have pride in, however you show it. But whether you’re a modder or a purist, yours should be the motor that everybody on your street admires. Keep it clean, keep it shiny, don’t bin it and you’re onto a winner. The rich fat bloke three doors down might have an expensive Alfa you’d secretly give your left nut for, but enthusiasts respect all clean cars. Fact.
7. Clean thy car thyself
Next time you see someone at the self-service jet wash, remember that the ‘soft brush’ has been lying on the ground at some point and its bristles will be full of grit. The man using it is now rubbing the same brush all over his paint. If you don’t see anything wrong with this then there’s something wrong with you. Clean your pride and joy yourself (or with some friends) and it’ll stay in much better nick for much longer.
8. Remove winter salt immediately
Salt is just about the worst thing you can put on a car. It eats away at metal and paint like a hobo at a bucket of KFC. Naturally then, the British authorities smother the roads with it every winter and most people just leave it all over their wheels, bodywork, suspension components, exhausts and everything else it can reach. And every time that salt gets wet, say if it’s raining or if condensation forms overnight, that salt starts corroding again. Think on.
9. Clean thy windows properly
If there’s a god of window cleaning, a lot of people must have him seriously miffed. A microfibre cloth and some decent glass cleaner is all you need to clean the inside of windows properly, so you’re not constantly trying to look through or around the endless smudges, sat-nav rings and thick layers of dust on your screen. Don’t be an ass; shine your glass.
10. Be gentle with a cold engine
For anyone who doesn’t remember the old Castrol advert, 90 per cent of engine wear happens in the first 10 minutes after a cold start. So what kind of eternal retard fires up their engine in the morning and hammers off up the road at a million revs? That’s a very easy way to guarantee the sort of catastrophic engine failure that the AA won’t even attempt to fix. Treat your car like a fine woman. Gently at first, to get her in the mood. Only give her everything when she’s nice and hot.
Follow these 10 car care commandments and there's a place reserved for you in scrapheap heaven. Otherwise, you'll be drinking from your recycled ride via a Coke can...
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