During the winter months, it's very important to keep your car clean. It's the worst time of year for dirt from the road building up on your paintwork, and the salty residue left over by gritters whenever there's a frost in the forecast can eat away at the metal and cause it to rust.
So, like most people these days, I try to pop to my local hand car wash at least once a fortnight to get all that horrible detritus washed off. It costs £6 a time and, because we have three cars in the household, that's £18 every two weeks.
While weighing up some cash saving alternatives, Halfords kindly sent me a new range of products they've launched that aims to bundle everything you need to keep your car shiny and clean in one discounted package. The automotive brand has compiled three "bucket deals" of varying prices which give you all the basic kit you will require to get you started on some home handwashing.
Here I weigh up whether it's worth it in the long run to get stuck in and give my car a DIY spring clean at home more often.
I sometimes treat one of my cars, a modern classic, to a bit of a polish too, which adds to the ever mounting price. A local guy comes to my house and charges a very reasonable £25 for a basic valet, which includes a shine-up that makes the paint absolutely gleam. And a quality polish is really important because it protects the paintwork from the chemicals that land on it. It also makes it easier to wash it next time.
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It is, then, quite an expensive business keeping my cars clean. Even if I just take one car to the hand car wash once a month it would cost £72 over a year, so keeping my fleet clean over even just an autumn and winter season would run into the hundreds of pounds.
Could I save some money by washing my cars at home? It's been years since I've washed a car myself, I'm ashamed to say, so will I find the motivation? How much has technology moved on, and how good are the latest products?
There was only one way to find out. I was going to have to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty... Or, er, clean, actually.
There's three bucket bundles to choose from at Halfords, and prices start at just £7. For that, you'll get a bucket, a sponge, a pack of microfibre cloths and a litre bottle of wash and wax. It's a package that would normally cost you £12.49, so it's a really good deal.
And then there's the medium-price option, the large bundle costing £25. This time the bucket comes with two-and-a-half litres of shampoo, a wheel brush, a wash mitt, a chamois leather, and bottles of interior cleaner, wheel cleaner and exterior and glass cleaner. This bundle is superb value for money because, if you buy it all separately it would cost £43.28. And it is, literally, everything you're going to need.
But, because I'm a bit posh, I went for the ultimate bundle. Costing £45, the Halfords Advanced bucket deal comes with a bigger bucket, and it includes a grit guard which sits at the bottom of the bucket keeping accumulated grot out of the water you're working with.
You only get 500ml bottles with this bundle, but there's more of them and they're premium fluids. These are from the Halfords Advanced range, so they're specially formulated to be the best available in the store.
The bundle starts with the Advanced Performance Shampoo, and then you get some Quick Detailer, Tar and Glue Remover, Upholstery Cleaner, Reactive Wheel Cleaner, Glass Cleaner and a Quick Detailer.
If you were to buy all of this separately you'd be landed with a bill of £72, so to get everything for £45 is quite a bargain.
Alarmingly, though, this bundle doesn't come with a sponge, a wheel brush, or a chamois. And that's a bit of a shame.
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A wash mitt and wheel brush cost less than a fiver each or, you can do what I did, and pop to the pound shop. Then you'll need a good chamois leather - fortunately, I still had a car drying towel in my loft which just needed a wash and it was good to go. It's also worth having some buffing cloth for the windows and interior, which I also had in stock.
So basically, for less than £50 I had everything I needed to get to work. The only other tool I had to commandeer was a hosepipe.
I'd forgotten how much fun it was to wash a car, from start to finish. My little daily runabout, a Fiat Panda, just had a basic wash. It's covered in scratches and dents so it's never going to look all that special anyway. I didn't even dry it off.
My wife's BMW was treated to a bit more TLC, and it was a good chance to use the Reactive Wheel Cleaner. This is marvellous stuff. It turns the brake dust that shows up as a dull grey on your alloys into a pink, foamy solution, which highlights where you need to agitate the metal with a brush. Once you've done that, just hose it off and you're away.
I also tried out the upholstery cleaner and the tar and glue remover. They're very easy to apply and, while they do take some effort to buff off, it's hardly taxing.
A final once over with some quick detailer left the BMW with a very impressive shine. And I still had time to get to work on my toy, a Mazda MX-5.
This got the full monty. I was a bit exhausted by this point, but thankfully it's the smallest car. The glass cleaner did a superb job on my windscreen, the upholstery cleaner made less of a difference to the seats, but worked wonders on the carpet, and the quick detailer did a good job of the paintwork. Truth be told, a dedicated polish would have done better, but this is just a spray-on, wipe-off solution, and great if you're short on time.
It took me just under two hours to wash three cars in the end. I reckon I could do one in half an hour, depending on how deep the clean needs to be. And that includes setting everything up and packing it all away.
But what struck me was how much of a pleasure it was to be lavishing a bit of love on my cars. It sounds silly, but you learn a lot about them. You pick out imperfections you didn't notice before, and you spot little details in the design you hadn't picked out.
It was also a surprisingly good workout, my smartwatch's health tracker was very pleased with me and the final stage, when you dry the car off and see the paintwork start to shine through, is immensely rewarding.
The Halfords bundle deals are a great way of giving you that initial shove towards resisting the temptation to pay someone else to do your dirty work. Barring a few bits I needed to pick up, the Advanced Bucket Deal gave me all the quality fluids I needed to go to town on my cars, and that big 20-litre bucket with the grit guard is a marvellous thing to have.
Being honest, I could have done a pretty good job of cleaning the cars with just the £7 bucket deal, I'd probably have done a nicer job than my hand car wash guys do, and it would have cost just £1 more. And that's before you factor in the petrol to get to and from the forecourt.
Am I too lazy to carry on handwashing myself though? That's the big question. I can see myself taking matters into my own hands throughout the colder months, at least. It's a good weekend workout and it really doesn't take that long.
And the best bit is I can spend the money I save on some upgrades for my car. I guess I'll probably end up back at Halfords. They're not stupid, are they?
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