How often a vehicle should be seen, and why a rhythm costs less than a rescue.
3 articles
How often a vehicle should be seen, and why a schedule is easier on the vehicle and the bill than waiting until it looks bad.
There is no single correct interval, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. What there is, is a short list of factors that decide it — and they are all things you already know about your own vehicle.
Sun does more damage to a car here than salt does anywhere north of us, and it does it quietly. Here is what heat and ultraviolet light actually break, in the order they break it.
The argument for a schedule is not about discipline. It is that dirt changes state over time — and once it has, removing it stops being cleaning and starts being repair.
The short version
There are two ways to own a clean vehicle and they cost very different amounts. One is to let it get bad and then pay somebody to recover it, which is slow work with an uncertain result because some of the damage by then is permanent. The other is to keep it from ever getting there, which is quick work with a certain result.
The second is cheaper over any timescale longer than a year, and it is not close. A carpet that has never had soil worked into its backing does not need extraction. Paint that has never been left unprotected does not need correcting. An interior cleaned before body oil sets into the seat never develops the shine that does not quite come out.
What the right interval is depends on how the vehicle is used and where it sits rather than on a number in a brochure — a garaged weekend car and a truck in an open lot are not on the same schedule. These pieces work through how to pick yours, and what changes if you have already left it too long.
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