Winterize Your Car - Protect Your Paint - By Matt Griffoul, Owner, AJ Pro Detail

Fall and Winter Weather are here! What can you do to keep your vehicle in top shape in all sorts of weather?

It's easy at AJ's to keep your car in top shape. Rain or shine, we are here to help. In case of rain, we have a 10,000 square foot awning (it is big) that covers our entire exterior work space. All of your vehicle's exterior surfaces are completely protected from the sun and rain.

Frequent Washes: Without a doubt, the most important thing to do to preserve your car's finish is to wash the winter dirt (and road grime) off frequently. It is important to be gentle when performing this cleaning, as the road grime can scratch your clearcoat (or even your paint color) if your rub it with too much force.

Good-bye Tunnel: We do not recommend taking your car through a car wash tunnel. Why? The rotating brushes retain dirt from the previous vehicle, no matter how much water they pump through the unit. The dirt sticks to those synthetic brushes. This condition will actually scratch your clearcoat during the cleaning process. The dirt gets removed and your paint gets scratched! I cannot tell you how many paint jobs we have repaired due to scratches that were created by the rotating brushes at the car wash.

Hand-Wash: The correct way to clean your car's exterior is by hand washing with warm water and lots of soap. (The warm water loosens dirt faster and the abundance of soap adds lubricity so your paint doesn't get scratched.) That is the only way we remove the dirt and road grime from your vehicles surface.

Clay Bar, Wax, Polish: Once the exterior dirt is removed, we recommend a clay bar treatment that will gently remove any remaining grime from the clearcoated surface. Removing this last bit of dirt from the clearcoat will have a huge and positive impact toward extending the life of your paint job. Over time, the impurities work with sun, wind and rain to accelerate the degradation of your paint finish and cause you (what could have been) an avoidable repair expense. When the clay bar treatment is complete, we apply either one or two coats of wax (your choice) and your paint is protected for the upcoming season. We recommend a clay bar treatment twice a year: once before winter and once before summer. We also highly recommend an Aqua Coating. Aqua Coating creates a hydrophobic barrier that enhances water beading. Rain will easily run off your car; the coating helps prevent water spotting.

Interiors: It's a good idea to have your car's interior cleaned periodically, as the dirt from your shoes/boots will become imbedded in the carpet fibers. This will lead to accelerated rate of wear, unknown odors in your car, and a generally less-than-pleasant experience regarding your car's interior condition. Remember, this is where you sit! You deserve a clean cockpit from which you operate your vehicle.

At AJ's, we will do our very best to give you the result you want so that you can be proud of the condition of your ride. We bring out the best in your car at AJs! Thanks for being an AJ's customer. Sincerely, Matt