Car maintenance is important – inside and out!

I’m going to start with a little tale. We’ll call it cautionary to protect my blushes.

I used to live in Tokyo and would come back to the UK every summer. The day before we returned to the UK I’d picked up my daughter from her nursery and put her “craft project” (she was one year old. Craft projects inevitably involved lots of glue and lots of glitter and I thought this one was the same) on the passenger seat and it tipped over. In a rush I left it, came home for the summer, and forgot all about it until my return.

Well, didn’t I get a shock. The craft project was “Grow Your Own Mustard and Cress Seeds”. I’d left it in a car over the summer. A car with an open window. The summer in Tokyo is brutal – 100 degree heat, 100% humidity and a few typhoons for good measure.  Optimal growing conditions. The inside of my car looked like the Blue Peter garden.  What a joy that was to harvest clean up.

That tale is over the top, but we’ve heard a few tales recently about the state of cars. Some garages have started charging extra for servicing if the car is a mess on the inside. We’ve heard of someone who was handed a towel to sit on as they entered a company car “to keep their suit clean” (funnily enough, the company didn’t get their business). Another business owner has told us that they won’t deal with someone if their car is a mess “How can I trust them to look after me if they can’t look after their car?”

Update your Company Car Guidelines

If the inside of the car is so heavily stained that even the trustiest of steam cleaners can’t shift it, it’s going to affect resell values. The state of a company car can reflect badly on the company and the person driving. A few lines in  your company car guidelines stating expectations regarding valeting can avoid this.

Oh, and a personal tip – pick up fallen craft projects immediately!