Maintaining Your Car Is Easier Than Ever
Looking through Amazon for just five minutes will give you an endless list of car cleaning products that promise to keep your car neat and tidy, but most of them are either ineffective or redundant. Here is a list of products that you absolutely do not need to buy and why:
Tire Shine Gel
If you think that using this will make your tires look ‘good as new,’ you’re wrong. While tire shine gel can make your tires LOOK clean and shiny, the shine fades away almost as soon as you start driving. Plus, the gel can sling onto your car’s paint when driving, leaving greasy patches. Cleaning your tires regularly with soap and water is enough to keep them looking new.
Car-Specific Glass Cleaner
The only real difference between Windex and Invisible Glass is that the latter is ammonia-free. Wouldn’t it make more sense then to buy ammonia-free Windex and have a product that you can use at home AND for your car? You can save more by investing in a high-quality, multi-purpose glass cleaner.
Air Freshener Bombs
Spending $10 on a scent bomb that will only last for a day is the definition of wasting money. Most of our cars don’t smell so bad that they require chemical treatment. If you clean your car regularly, throw out any trash, and have a normal $1 air freshener, you’re pretty much set.
Bug and Tar Remover Sprays
Unless you’re regularly driving through a forest (or construction sites), you don’t need these specialised sprays. While getting bugs and tar splashes off your car is difficult, for most people, warm water, car shampoo, and a microfibre cloth should do the trick.
Waterless Car Wash Sprays
Yes, they are convenient and easy to use, but do you really need them? Why pay extra for a product when simple car shampoo and a hose can do the trick? Such sprays can also be harsh on your car’s paint, making them especially harmful for cars that have intricate detailing.
Wheel-Specific Brushes
Wheels are hard to reach and harder to maintain. Having a special set of brushes to clean each wheel makes sense, right? No. Such brushes are usually not very different from other cleaning brushes you use at home. If you want to save money, invest in any soft-bristled brush that you can use for other purposes as well.
Leather Conditioning Wipes
These are really helpful if you’re on the road regularly. If you travel a lot, having these wipes can help you maintain the quality and longevity of your car seats. But if you don’t live a nomadic lifestyle, using any normal leather conditioner with a microfibre wipe should be enough.
Dashboard Shine Sprays
Picture this—you use a shine spray to clean and tidy up your dashboard. Then, within a few hours, that dashboard starts attracting microdust and isn’t shiny and new anymore. That is usually how using these sprays goes. Their greasy texture becomes a home for even more dust and debris, making their use practically redundant.
Windshield Rain Repellent Sprays
All cars come with wipers pre-installed, so why spend more on a water-repellent spray? These sprays are usually costly, and any glass treated with them tends to streak in heavy rain. If you maintain your wipers and clean your glass regularly, you will not need these.
Air Vent Cleaning Brushes
Like the tire cleaning brushes, these are a gimmicky novelty that you really don’t need. Clean your air vents by repurposing any old paint brushes or makeup brushes you have lying around, and you can cut out an unnecessary expense.
