When you wash your Prius do you.......

I do all except open the hood. I guess you're more anal then me haha.

SCH-I535

 

Nope you are not weird. I do the same thing. All of my cars look brand new.

 

You're just a bit weird! I have a friend that has to clean everything really well, might be a disorder. do you wash your hands a lot? lol

 

Do the jams , door edges and under the hood every time .

 

Same here... Just waxed it yesterday, door jambs and all! When I wash it, I'll open the doors and hit the jambs with the sponge. Then (with doors closed) rinsing will clean it all out and save my towel from getting nasty. When I do the wheels I also use my wheel brush to do the wheel wells. When I dry it, it all gets dried, even in the gas door. A little over the top but takes little extra time and I've had cars that still looked great at upwards of 200k miles.


iPhone ?

 

I do the door jams, and under the door edge. I have a black Prius, so I use extra caution on my my towels and products,

 

YES! every time I wash my car. It use to work in my favor when I traded in my cars. This is the only vehicle I've owned where it didn't work in my favor. This car does not hold it's value at all. I traded in my 2007 Tacoma truck for this 2010 Prius and my truck has gone up in value to this day. My 2010 Prius has depreciated quite a bit I'm sad to say. I'm forced to hold on to it now, can't justify the $5k hit.

 

I do the door jambs and under the door edges. I have not done the hood yet, in fact I have not really paid attention to the hood under side. You are going to make me check this

Yea, I am OCD too.

 

I have to admit, while I take great pride in keeping my vehicles looking as good as possible as long as possible, I don't routinely wipe down unseen door jams and under the hood. If I could find the trunk on my Prius, I wouldn't wipe down that area either.

Part of this approach is born out of the fact that I don't have a garage, which means the vehicle is parked in the elements, and I live in a region blessed with copious amounts of rainfall. Cleaning these usually unseen area offers me little lasting advantage.

I do however, and always have, paid attention to how the engine compartment looks. The Prius engine compartment stays remarkable clean, but I do check it every month or so, and if I see an area looking dirty I carefully wipe down that area. I don't do anything too aggressive under the hood as their are a large amount of electronics and wires that I don't want to expose to unnecessary chemicals or high pressure spray. Luckily so far my experience with The Prius is that the engine compartment naturally stays amazingly clean with little maintenance needed.

So you've caught me. Most of the time, my vehicle will look great. But if you open a door and check the door jam? You'll find evidence that it's not just off the showroom floor.

I would say, about twice a year I do a "major" detailing including all those areas. But the rest of the year...nope.

I chose Once a Year...maybe...but the real answer for me is about twice a year for sure.

 

Yep i clean all the jams first. I then wash the car and dry the car and jams. I also apply Wurth Rubber Conditioner to all rubber seals. No silicone here.

 

I do all except under the hood. That I'll do infrequently. I also brush and vacuum what I can reach in the engine bay, maybe every couple of years. No service department has sprayed lubricant all over the door hinges, so the whole hinge area is easy to keep clean too.

What I think is really important is to pay close attention to the inside of the wheel wells, in particular the rear. They tend to accumulate grit, and coupled with salt on winter roads, it's bad news for the fenders to not stay on it.

 

Zaino polish is good stuff! I use their products on our cars too. They work much better than any wax in my experience.

 

I do the door jambs and hatch area with every wash (Zaino Z-7). The hood area gets done twice a year when I apply polish (Z-2 w/ ZFX followed by Z-6). I wash with Dawn and clay the vehicles each spring before polish.

If temps are above 40, the vehicles are hand washed about monthly. During the winter, when temps are above 25, I'll run them through an automatic car wash on about the same schedule, plus a final wash with underbody flush after the salt is gone.