How to Keep Your Toyota Clean During Winter Season

Nov 24, 2016

Keep Car Clean During Winter Charlotte, Nc Winter weather can be wet and muddy, which is bad news for your Toyota. Cars drive through snow, ice, sand, and mud, all of which can get tracked in on the soles of your feet. Keeping your vehicle clean during the winter can be a pain, but it’s important if you don’t want it to endure lasting damage. Here are a few tips to help.

Get a Preseason Wax

Winter roads are plagued by grit, salt, and ice, which can scratch your vehicle’s paint job and reduce its value. Investing in a good car wash and wax before winter sets in can give your car an extra layer of protection. Ideally, you’ll want to have the car completely detailed by a professional sometime during the fall, but if you prefer to do the job yourself, there are plenty of professional-quality products on the market that can help.

Invest in Rubber Floor Mats

Our shoes track in so much debris during the winter that the average car’s carpet looks like a mess halfway through the season. To help prevent stains, replace your vehicle’s fabric floor mats with heavy-duty, all-weather rubber mats. They’re surprisingly cheap and can last you several winters. Plus, they’re easy to hose off when you need to clean them. You’ll never again have to worry about your muddy shoes messing up your cabin’s ambiance.

Clean the Vehicle Often

An important aspect of keeping your car clean during winter is to, well, clean it. Even if you keep your garden hose handy, a frequent hosing will do the car a world of good when all that road salt and sand accumulate on the underbody. You also stop by the local car wash every few days to knock off the worst offenders. When you fail to rinse wintry debris from your vehicle, rust can form, which is more of a headache than a weekly run through a car wash.

Keep the Car Dry

Another important aspect of winter car care is keeping the vehicle dry. Winter temperatures can be brutal, and you don’t want water collecting in nooks and crannies and freezing your doors shut. After rinsing your car, be sure to dry it with a clean microfiber cloth. You might also want to do this if there’s been recent rain and an upcoming freeze is in the forecast.

Drive Carefully (When You Have To)

With so much muck on the roads, the last thing you want to do is spin your tires. The more careful you drive and are aware of road conditions, the more likely you’ll avoid the worst debris. If at all possible, avoid driving in severe winter weather so your car stays nice and dry in the garage.

Keeping your car clean during winter can certainly be challenging, but staying on top of your vehicle’s maintenance is key. Perform a few pre-winter errands, wash the car regularly, and be mindful of your habits to make sure your Toyota looks as good as new come spring.

Image by Oregon Department of Transportation, Licensed via CC BY 2.0