Over any period, a vehicle engine will become layered with dirt, dust and grease. This is due to normal daily use. A technique used to remove these nasty elements is to steam clean your engine. Not only will this improve the life of the engine but it will lessen the risk of a fire starting in the engine. Also, anyone coming to look at your vehicle for sale will, no doubt, want to peek under the hood to see the condition of the engine. Even if they know nothing about car engines, they want to see how things look and the better they look, the better it is for you because they’ll know the car was cared for.

The job of cleaning an engine can take about one hour to complete. Really anyone can steam their engine but there are some safety measures you must be aware of.

Check the Manual

Be sure to first read your vehicle maintenance manual for any specific instructions that you must follow regarding engine cleaning. Before you take out the steam cleaner to clean, you want to gather some items together that you will need. The better you prepare for any kind of job like this, the easier it will be.

Since there is the chance that pieces of debris and dirt can fly out while steaming, you will need some clothing to protect your clothes, eyes and a pair gloves in which you can comfortably work in. If there are deposits on the battery terminals, you should also keep a bucket of water with some baking soda nearby to clean it using an old rag.

Dirty Water

You must have a place to get rid of the dirty water as it is illegal to simply dump waste water (which has been treated) inside a sewer gutter. You must determine a method to clean the engine so you can easily dispose of the dirty water and properly dispose of it. It would be a good idea to first check with your water provider to find out where it can safely be disposed of.

Degreasing Will Help

To clean up the accumulation of grime and grease in the engine, consider using a degreaser which is citrus or water based. A degreaser which originates from petroleum can be rough on vinyl and rubber pieces inside the engine. Depending on the overall condition of the engine, you should consider if you will use this type of substance. However, it also depends on the type of steam cleaning machine you are using since some are effective on their own as far as removing additional grime and grease.

Some steam cleaners are made to be used inside the home so they might not be as powerful, therefore it may need some type of engine cleansing product to be useful. However, you must read the instructions carefully on the product which you choose and ensure that you do not spill any of the cleanser on any car parts, vehicle circuits, cable junctions, fuse box or sensors in the engine.

Cover Up All Electronics

The most important thing is to cover up all electronics. Try to cover those particular parts to prevent any accidental spill and prevent them from becoming wet which can cause damage. What works great to cover these parts is aluminum foil as you can mold it to get a perfect fit and it does not ruin your view. Plastic and tape works well, too.

You should disconnect the battery – that’s important so we’re putting this note here in bold.

Again you should read your vehicle manual to be sure that you are familiar with any sensitive information.

Start Steam Cleaning

When you are ready to begin steaming, be certain that the engine is cool. If you used the vehicle, be sure to wait at least two hours for it to cool down.

Begin cleaning by using a medium sized brush to loosen dirt and debris (such as grime or dried leaves). Begin using the steamer to clean under the insulation area of the hood, than gradually working your way to the general area of the hood. Spread the engine degreaser product (citrus or water based) to melt any grease and grime off of the engine areas. In some instances in which the engine is very dirty, you wish to apply and second or third layer of this non-petroleum degreaser.

Use the equipment on the steamer to rinse and clean off the dirt and grease. When you are finished steam cleaning, start the vehicle and let it run for a few minutes to be sure it is operating correctly.

Detailing and Finishing Up

Once everything has dried up, it’s good to get out a bottle of Armor All and shine up some of the hoses and plastic parts in the engine compartment. Doing this will make things shine even more.

Touch things up so that you don’t have water spots everywhere. Make it look nice. You don’t have to go crazy and super detailed but your aim is to get the engine bay looking good and look like it was well cared for.

Professional Engine Steam Cleaning Tools

If you will be doing this process a lot or if you own a business where you will be cleaning up cars, there are tools and products that will help you do your job even more efficiently. There are even waterless steam cleaners that don’t require you to cover up electronics.

Conclusion

Even if you’re not getting your car ready to sell, it’s a good idea to get the engine compartment steam cleaned once a year or two. As you can see, you can do it yourself and this makes for a good project on a Saturday afternoon in the late spring or else in the summer. If you live in an area with harsh winters, go ahead and do it every spring for sure. If you think this is too much work, then there are places in your area that will do engine cleaning or steam cleaning. Check with car washes or else car detailers in your area.

One thing that you might consider doing is making the interior look brand new along with making your car’s headlights not look foggy. There’s one product on the market that claims to do a good job with these things and it’s called Wipe New. I’ve used it and here’s my review.

Using Wipe New

This stuff is pretty powerful. They suggest wearing latex or rubber gloves and I suggest you do, too. You don’t want it on your hands because it’s difficult to get off. You’re going to throw away the gloves when you’re done, too. I’m no chemist, but I imagine Wipe New works a bit like acetone (nail polish remover) and might sort of slightly melt or dissolve plastic. Again, I’m no chemist and I do not suggest using acetone instead.

They give you some small sponges to use. On the second use, I just cut a cheap household sponge in two and that worked well.

Use just a bit at a time. You need to get the sponge wet but don’t soak it. As you work it on plastic, you’ll know if you are using enough or not. You’ll want to do it on a nice day (not too hot, not too cool out) and in a well ventilated area (there’s a smell but it’s not horrible). You can use it on your dashboard and really anything that’s plastic. Don’t get it on your car’s paint – so go slow around those areas.

On the exterior of your car, you can use it really on anything that’s plastic. Places like door trip are good and the black plastic area where the windshield wipers are is another good place. Also think about areas around the door mirrors, too.

Clear Up Foggy Headlights

Years ago now, car manufacturers came up with these plastic headlights. They’re nice because you just replace the bulb instead of the whole headlight assembly (I remember changing the whole headlamp on my mom’s Cavalier back in the 80s). Those old headlights, though, were made of glass so they didn’t fog up. The newer, plastic ones that you see out there appear to fog up but that’s just really wind and dust and sand and rocks hitting them and marking them up. They appear to look fogged out but in reality, they’re just worn.

A few years back, before Wipe New came out, I tried these headlight restoration kits and got limited results. I also had my headlights de-fogged at the local, full service car wash a few times and that lasted maybe 6 months and I’d have to get it done again. With that system, they using a solution and some sand paper and then finishing it off with some wax and a buffer. With Wipe New, you avoid all that and the results are better.

How to Use It

Just take some Wipe New and carefully apply it to your plastic headlights. Again, be careful around the corners so that you don’t get any on your car’s paint. Use a good amount of it. Once you’re done, you’ll just let it dry for several hours. Don’t try to wipe it dry or wax it or anything – just let it sit… then you’re done and the results are pretty amazing.

The Before and After

I got my BMW recently and it’s a 2009, so the headlights look pretty good still but my friend, Heather, was asking me if I’d help her with cleaning her car’s headlights. She wanted to borrow a drill with a cord since that’s what the directions on her headlight restoration kit called for. I looked and I still had enough Wipe New left over, so I headed over to her place with the drill and the Wipe New and some sponges.

She had some gloves, so we each did a headlight and the results were great. She wanted this done because her lights were getting so foggy that her lights seemed dim at night. Doing this definitely brightened things up.

I did take some before and after pictures of the headlights on her Camry and you can clearly (no pun intended) see the difference. Using Wipe New really cleared them up and the car looks better. Not only that, she’s going to get more light showing through her headlights, making night time driving safer for her and her daughter. Here are those pictures:

Left Headlight – Before and After Wipe New

Right Headlight – Before and After Wipe New

Final Review

I’d give Wipe New a 4.5 out of 5 stars for sure. It’s easy to use, does the job and works really well without a lot of effort. The only downside is the smell and that you have to let it dry a while but that’s a small price to pay for the results you get.

If you’re looking to clear up your foggy headlights, then the $20 (or so) investment into Wipe New is a no brainer. Local car washes and car detailers will charge $40 or more for clearing up your car’s headlights and it doesn’t last as long or look as good as Wipe New.

This is the type of product to use on your car once a year for sure – if you plan to sell it or not. If you are planning on selling your car, then again, it’s a no brainer. The $20 investment will pay off big time. Just make sure you do it a few days before you plan to sell the car and give the car time to air out so that the chemical smell isn’t there as you’re trying to show your car to a potential buyer. They might wonder what that is.

Conclusion

I hope you found this review article beneficial. I used Wipe New on my Acura and then now on Heather’s Camry with great results. I used the product myself and I believe I objectively wrote up this review because there have been plenty of products I’ve tried that haven’t worked out well.

If you liked this article, then please bookmark it and share it with others. If you have comments on using Wipe New or your own review of this product, then please leave your comments below.

It Just Takes 5 Minutes – Do It Yourself!

When you get a car from a local car dealer (usually when you get a used car), the dealer puts their sticker on the trunk or somewhere to help promote their dealership and tell others where you got your great car. The good thing is that you don’t need to have this dealership sticker on your car or truck and it’s actually really easy to remove – it’ll take maybe 5 minutes or so!

Above, I’m showing the before and after pictures when I did it on my car. It really only took about 5 minutes and I was completely done. I wish I would have done this earlier. I guess I thought the decal would still show through somehow or that the paint maybe faded and I still would have seen the logo on the car since the paint under it had been protected more but no – there’s absolutely no indication that the dealership sticker was ever there!

What You Need

To remove the dealer sticker, here’s what you’ll need:

• A hair dryer
• A credit card or squeegee
• Goo Gone
• A rag or cloth

How to Do It

First make sure the area is clean.

Next, plug in the hair dryer and you’re going to warm the sticker up. Turn it on high and go over the sticker area for 30 seconds to a minute.

Next, get your credit card out (or even use your finger nails) and peel away the dealer decal. It should be nice and warm now and come off pretty easily. Keep working at it until you get the major parts of it removed (as much of it as you can).

Once it’s gone, there will be some sticky residue. What I like to use is Goo Gone. This stuff works really well and it something good to have around the house to remove sticker residue from price tags or whatever – so it’s worth just having a bottle of this stuff around the house. Spray the area, let it sit a few seconds and then wipe it.

If there is still some residue, then spray it again and wipe. It should all come off.

You’re done!

Unless the sticker has been on there a really long time, it should have come cleanly off and you shouldn’t be able to tell it was even there.

Removing these stickers is easy. Really anyone can do it, so there’s no reason to pay an auto detailer money to do it. You’re also increasing the value of your car because it looks cleaner to a buyer who comes to look at it. That’s your goal – to have as clean of a car as you can and one that looks as close to new as possible. This will help the buyer visualize them self in it, driving it and owning it.

How-to Video

Sometimes seeing something done helps you understand how to do it better. It makes more sense than reading some instructions – most of us are more visual learners anyway.

Below, you will find a video showing you how to remove dealer stickers from your car – just follow what he does and, along with the instructions here, you’ll have that decal removed in no time!

Remove Stickers from Glass

You may also have some stickers on the glass of your car (like the windshield) that you might want removed. Doing it is easy, too. You might as well do this task at the same time and get the car totally clean. This can include parking stickers, state park stickers or even residue from your state’s toll road unit that you stick onto your windshield.

What You Need

• A razor scraper
• Window cleaner
• Paper towels

How to Do It

You’ll first spray down the sticker and area with a good amount of window cleaner. I like to soak the area pretty well.

Next, use your razor scraper to remove the sticker. Start at an edge and slowly scrape. You may need to apply more window cleaner a few times but it should all come off. When you scrape the glass, you’re not damaging it – the glass can take it.

Use paper towels to clean up and you’re done! If there’s still a little residue, then either keep scraping or else try some of the Goo Gone and that should clean it all up for sure.

Conclusion – Removing Stickers

There’s really no need to have these stickers on your car. They just clutter it up. By removing them, you clean up the appearance of your car and make it look nicer. This, of course, applies to a car you’re trying to sell and the next one you pick up from a dealer or a used car lot.

I hope this article helped you. If it did, let us know and leave a comment. If we forgot something or if you have a tip that will help others, please leave that below. Don’t forget to share this article with others!

Spending just 2 hours cleaning your car could easily ad hundreds of dollars of value when selling it. If you got an extra $400 because your car looked great and you only spent 2 hours cleaning it, that’s like working for $200 an hour. So why not?

What Does Detailing a Car Mean?

First, let’s just quickly discuss what we’re doing. When you detail a car, you’re cleaning beyond what’s normally done at a car wash. Think about it… you’re out there driving on the road, which is dirty and small specs of dirt come off the road and onto your car all the time. There’s also dust and rain that play a part. Instead of just getting the main parts clean, you’re going after the parts that usually get a light cleaning or get skipped over with a normal car wash. You’re going into more detail.

When you detail clean a car, you’re goal is to get it looking its best – the best that you can – and as close to new as you can. You may choose to go beyond what you can do and have a local body shop do some touch up work to the body of the vehicle. That’s up to you and we’re not going into that here – I’ll mainly talk about what to detail and how to do it so that you get every area that’s important, which should be time well invested.

How to Get Ready

First, you have to dedicate the time. Make sure you are able to spend maybe 2-3 hours on a good cleaning. Before you get started on the detail work, here are some things to have ready or things to do before you start detailing your car:

1. Get it clean. This means take it to a car wash first – one that will do a good job and most of them use environmentally friendly ways of reusing their water. You have the option to clean it yourself, of course.
2. Get some rags and dry cloths – ones you can throw away or dedicate to washing the car. Old t-shirts are good.
3. Get a vacuum cleaner that has thin attachments that let you get into tough places.
4. Get some cleaning supplies – you’ll need:
   1. Soap – get car shampoo, not dish soap.
   2. A bucket.
   3. A sponge.
   4. A brush – the kind with a wood handle.
   5. Armor All Protectant (spray)
   6. Tire wax – the kind that foams up.
   7. Chrome cleaner for the wheels if they need it.
   8. A scrubbie sponge – the green ones that are a bit abrasive.
   9. A brush or upholstery brush
   10. Window cleaner and paper towels.
5. Carpet and upholstery cleaner – there’s one called “Tuff Stuff Multi-Purpose Foam Cleaner” that works excellent. Make sure you get some of this.

Wash the Car

You got a normal car wash first because what you’re doing is detailing your car – not just a normal washing. You’re going beyond what a local car wash place will normally do.

Find a Place to Start Detailing

Get all your stuff together and set yourself up in a good place to work. For most people, this is their garage or driveway. If you live in an apartment or condo or some place where you can’t clean your car there, then go to one of the self-serve car washes in the area. You can clean your car there and then pull to the side somewhere and start your detailing.

Made in the Shade

If possible, work out of the sunlight, in the shade. This is especially important when you’re waxing the car or truck. Also, it’ll keep you cooler while you’re working. Of course, it can’t be too cold while you’re doing this either. If you’re washing your vehicle yourself, then you always want to do that in the shade so that you don’t get water spots.

Get Help

One good tip is get someone to help you. They can do one thing while you do another. Have the radio on and be sure to get them something to drink and maybe share a pizza when you’re all done!

Get Started Doing Your Detailing

Since working on the carpets (getting stains out) is going to take the longest to dry, you’re going to do everything else first and save that for last.

Detail Vacuum

Before everything gets wet from cleaning with a sponge, do your detail vacuuming. Get under the seats and everywhere you can. Watch for loose change and don’t forget to keep it. Pull back seats if you can and get all those crumbs out. Doing this will help the car smell better, too. Vacuum out the trunk.

Try different attachments with your vacuum cleaner so that you do the best with your time that you can getting under the seats and working on cloth areas.

Door Areas

Get your bucket full of warm water with soap in it and get a sponge and a dry towel. You’re going to go around to each door and clean out all the corner areas really good. Go into where the hinges are and carefully clean in there. Clean the rubber and everything that you can. Leave the door hinges greased up so that they open and close easily.

Hood and Trunk

Next, go into the hood and trunk and do the same. Clean everything.

Under the hood, you can clean most parts. Don’t get anything electrical wet. I like to use some Armor All on the hoses and anything plastic. Cleaning under the hood will make it look like the car was well cared for when you sell it. Do a good job on it and you’ll see some amazing results.

Tackle the Tires and Wheels

When a vehicle has nice looking tires and wheels, it makes a huge, huge difference! Here are two pictures showing the before and after when I did some detailing of my brother’s 1999 Nissan Pathfinder (which I got looking super sharp!)

Start with some clean water and soap in the bucket and get the green scrubbie sponge out. Get into all the corners of the wheels and clean those babies! It might take some elbow grease (muscle).

Next, get the chrome cleaner out if you have chrome wheels and spray it on. Let it sit 2 minutes and then spray a bit more on and then towel them dry with maybe a light scrub first.

If your car has wheel covers instead of alloy wheels, you have some options. First, you could just go buy some new wheel covers – that will pay for itself for sure. Second, you can clean and then carefully spray paint (black) the steel wheels to make them look better even though they are behind the wheel covers. Use some tape and tape off the tires so that you don’t get spray paint on the tires – you don’t want that.

Next, use the tire foam wax on all 4 tires. Spray it on and then I wipe if off. Make sure you spray it evenly and go to the edge of the tire.

Now your wheels and tires should look awesome!

Armor All the Inside

Get the Armor All protectant out and clean all the plastic. Use a clean rag. I like to spray it on the rag, outside the car and then use the rag to put it on the part I’m shining up. This makes sure you’re not getting it on places you don’t want it. They also make some Armor All wipes, which are good, too.

Where you don’t want to use Armor All is on the pedals, steering wheel (the wheel itself – the steering column is ok… you just don’t want a steering wheel that’s slippery) or windows.

Armour All the Outside

Your car may have some areas that you can shine up with Armor All. Don’t get it on the painted areas of the car, of course, but maybe things like mud flaps or trim or mirrors.

There’s this stuff called “Wipe New” which you can order that works really well. You have to be careful when using it but it does wonders. It works great and is more permanent than Armor All.

Clean the Windows

Use some window cleaner and clean both sides of the windows. Don’t leave streaks.

I think cleaning the windows good is huge! This is what people are looking through when they are test driving the car. A dirty windshield can make the whole car seem dirty.

If you’re in a warm climate or it’s summer out and you’re one of those people that don’t crack their windows when the car sits outside, the chemicals from the seats or dirt or whatever you have sitting in your car is going to get into the air and then create a film on the windows. It might take washing the windows 2-3 times to get all of that off.

Carpet Cleaning

Now that most of the inside work is done, you can tackle the carpets. Cleaning the carpets gets out stains and will help the car smell cleaner and fresher. You can have a car wash place do a steam cleaning if you like or you can do that yourself, too. At least get some baking soda based carpet cleaner and use it on the inside.

If you have stains on light colored carpet, don’t worry – you can get them out. This Tuff Stuff that I mentioned basically performs miracles. What you do is spray it on an area until it foams up. Let it sit for at least 2 minutes – maybe wait up until 4-5. Then, get your wood handled brush or upholstery brush and scrub the area. You might scrub for 30 seconds or so but the stain will usually come out or get much better. If there’s still some stain there, then do this whole process 1-2 more times and that should take care of it.

Once you’ve taken care of all the spots on the carpet and if you’ve followed all the steps here so far, you might start thinking that your car looks awesome and you might not even want to sell it now. Thinking that is normal.

You’ll want the car to air out, so have it somewhere that has a breeze and leave the windows and sunroof open so that it can dry. It might take 1-2 hours.

Detail Waxing

The last step (and probably only thing left to do) is wax your car. Doing this will really make it shine and give your car the “wow” factor when someone sees it.

You’ll first use rubbing compound on tough areas. This is explained in the video below. If you have a car that’s red, then you might need to first use rubbing compound on the whole car to get rid of the dead layer of paint. This is mainly a problem with red cars.

Get some Turtle Wax or similar kind and get to it. You’ll do a small area at a time. Put some on, let it dry and then wipe it off with a clean towel. Borrow or buy a car buffer if you want.

Here’s a good video on how to wax a car. Watch this before you even start this process:

Some Cheats / Extra Stuff

What I explained here is if you want to do all this work yourself. You could, of course, hire someone to do this for you and still come out ahead. You will need to leave your car with them for several hours. Find a local car wash or search for an auto detailer in your areas. Sometimes Groupon will have some deals.

Use Febreeze in your car. You don’t want some air freshener that’s too strong or it’ll seem like you’re covering something up. Get a neutral type of air fresher or upholstery spray and put it on.

Getting new car mats makes a pretty big difference. Spending $30 on some is worth it if your car needs new ones.

Visit a local junkyard and try to find some replacement interior parts. You might spend $5-10 on a bunch of things and you can easily fix some stuff. This will pay for itself, too. There are also websites that sell OEM replacement parts, so check those out, too.

Conclusion

Hopefully, as I kind of mentioned already, you’re now looking at your car in a new way. It should look so good that you want to keep it maybe. Your main goal with a good cleaning and detailing is to go for that “wow” factor. You also want to make feel good emotionally about the car. If it looks clean and cared for, you’ll fetch a better price for sure. People are trying to imagine themselves in the car when they are looking it over. Try to give them a good of a feeling about that as you can.

My Work

Here are some pictures of the work I did on my brother’s Nissan Pathfinder – a before and after picture. The interior actually took a lot of work and was an ever bigger transformation but I don’t have pictures of that.

If there’s something else you think I missed, leave some comments for us below. And don’t forget to share this article with your friends!