Summary: Do this to your new car and you’ll save days of hard labor down the road.

How I prepped my new XC:

I am an anal retentive kook when it comes to keeping my vehicles in showroom condition. But, with age comes wisdom, so I’ve learned the art of delayed gratification. What I mean by this is that if you take a brand new car, invest a day or two into prepping it, never take it to a car wash that touches your car with anything but water, never let the local scouts or 4-H groups wash your car, and follow a few upkeep rules, it should look showroom fresh for years to come without much work.

So when you take delivery, drive straight home and put it in the garage. Make sure you have obtained the following:

Top shelf car wash fluid, paint cleaner/wax remover, polish, Carnuba wax, engine cleaner, engine gloss, exterior plastic and trim restorer/protectant, wheel cleaner, genuine sheepskin wash mitt or 100% cotton wash mitt, new 100% cotton terrycloth towels, chamois, wax/polish pads, boar’s hair brush, new 100% cotton socks, mountain bike chain lube, Q-tips.

What I got:

Griot’s Garage Car Wash fluid.

Griot’s Speed Shine and paint cleaning clay. This is a bizarre concept, but it really works. You take a chunk of the yellow clay, spray the speed shine onto the paint and the clay, and rub it around. Then you just wipe off the excess before it dries. This removes the crappy factory/dealer polish and wax.

Griot’s Polish. Will get rid of any micro-scratches and swirl marks, although there shouldn’t be any on a brand new car. Dark colors will show these much more than lighter colors.

Griot’s Best of Show Wax. Carnuba wax. Wax on, wax off.

Griot’s Engine Cleaner.

Griot’s Engine Shine. After you clean the engine bay with the cleaner, let it dry and spray this stuff all over. Puts a coat of clear-coat glossy stuff that made my brand new engine look MUCH better! It’s not greasy at all, so it will make future bay cleanings much easier.

Mother’s Back To Black trim and plastic cleaner. This stuff is magic. You know how the black plastic on the outside of the car always starts to turn pale and whitish? Yea, Armor All can get rid of it, for a minute or so. Armor All makes it look cheesy glossy, streaks after it rains, and washes off right away. This stuff you slather on, then wipe off the excess. What I did was slather it all over every inch of exterior plastic and then take my car to the local Laser Wash (touchless water jets). After that the plastic looked so good, you have to see it to understand.

Griot’s wheel cleaner.

Griot’s Genuine Sheepskin Wash Mitt.

100% cotton terrycloth towels. Get new ones, don’t use old ones, and don’t buy from the rag bin at the auto parts store. This is probably the most important thing in all of this. People tend to use old, used towels that may not be 100% cotton. This ALWAYS results in micro-scratches and swirl marks. All sorts of micro-contaminants can be in the fibers of old towels. Anything but cotton will scratch as well.

Chamois. Natural or synthetic is fine. Use this to dry the car after you wash it. Much better than towels since it absorbs lots and rings out easily. Quick way to transport the water from the car to the pavement.

Griot’s wax pads.

Griot’s Boar’s Hair Brush. This will allow you to scrub off bugs and stuff without scratching the paint. The Boar’s Hair will not scratch, so use it with a constant stream of water if you have some stubborn stuff on your car.

Some cheap new 100% cotton socks. Turn them inside out and use them as waxing/buffing gloves for door frames and tight spots.

MTB chain lube??? Yea. I use this stuff called T-9 from Boeing. It’s used on airplanes. Goes onto metal, dries, and 400+mph wind and rain can’t get it off to start rusting the metal. Does not attract dirt either. Since this stuff is very hard to find, you can go to your local bike shop and get some Pedro’s SynLube or equivalent. DO NOT USE WD-40, it will eat plastic and paint! After the whole car is done being cleaned and waxed, I take some Q-tips and soak them in this stuff. I then go around and find any bolt, nut, or exposed threads and lightly coat them with it. Any bolts inside the door frames, any recessed black metal screws, any rivets in the wheel wells, I even crawled under the car and went to town. What this will prevent is that annoying rust that ends up seeping down from these items after a few years. It will also make life much easier for your mechanic or body shop should it become necessary to remove any of these items. No rust, no seize.

Instructions. All items mentioned below are listed above. Use substitutes at your own risk!

Step 1: Wash engine bay with engine cleaner. Follow the directions on the bottle. Let bay dry completely. Drying may take a few hours. Do not run engine to dry, since it will cause big nasty water spots all over the bay. After it looks dry, take the car for a spin around the block. Open the hood again and you’ll see all the hidden water has come out. Let it dry.

2: Spray engine gloss according to directions on can.

3: Wash car with car wash fluid and wash mitt. Brush if necessary. Do this even if the car looks completely clean!!!!! Hose off first to clear away dust and debris. Don’t use the mitt to wash wheel wells or lower fender/bumpers until the end. This is because the dirt from those areas can become impregnated into the mitt and your wash solution to make a nice way to grind your paint. I actually use a separate crappy mitt for this, and only do it after I’m done with the rest of the car.

4: Dry with chamois.

4a: If you have an electric leaf blower, use it to blow all the water out from the seams and doors. Be careful to run the blower first in order to blow out any particles that may be in it.

5: Put car in garage to totally dry. Get something to eat.

6: Use the clay and Speed Shine on one panel at a time. Follow the directions closely. Make sure to do the roof too. Use some of the towels to wipe off the solution as directed.

7: Wax the car. Follow the directions. Use the pad to apply, and clean towels to remove. Put two or three coats on high traffic areas like the leading edge or even the whole hood, bottom edge of tailgate (where your fingers always grab to close), door handles/cups, above windshield, etc..

8: Use the socks to wax the door frames, door sills, inside edges of doors/tailgate, anywhere and everywhere there is some paint you can reach.

9: Use the Back To Black to liberally coat every bit of plastic you can see. A sock is good for this since there are a lot of crevices and recessed areas. Make sure to really get the edges where the plastic meets the paint since there will probably be some wax rubbed into the plastic.

10: Seek out all nuts&bolts to coat with the lube.

11: Take car to a touchless wash and run it through. Why? It will get rid of all the wax powder, excess lube, and excess Back To Black.

12: Revel in the knowledge that your car will now only need an occasional touchless wash to look brand-spankin’ new for years to come.

Well, #12 is a bit inaccurate. If you want to be a super-kook, repeat the whole process every 6 months. If you actually have a life, hand-wash and wax (remove and re-apply) once a year, or whenever you think it is necessary.

Here’s one step you can take in the beginning of the process, take each wheel off and wash/wax the whole rim. Inside is very important since this is where the real grime builds up. If you’re not comfortable doing this, don’t worry too much, just wash and wax the outside of the wheel. I HATE Armor All. I feel it gives tires a nice greasy Fonzi-hair look, or the look I associate with cars that have “Fear This” stickers on the back window. Clean natural rubber looks better as far as I’m concerned. However, if your tires get really weathered, you can use some tire foam as long as you go and wash off the excess after it has soaked in. This should result in a clean, flat-black appearance.

You can certainly start this whole process with an older car, just know that it will take more work and may never look “brand new”, although it will look much better than the average schmoe’s ride. The Griot’s polish will do wonders to get rid of micro-scratches.

The last benefit to all this is the respect your mechanics will give your car. It is simple human nature to respect/fear something that looks brand new or is obviously taken care of, as opposed to something that doesn’t appear to be all that much cared about.