Buying a new car is nothing short of a dream come true. But the first scratch turns it sour. There is a range of car care products today – aerosol spray paints, dashboard and tyre shiners, wax creams, shampoos – to put your car back in shape.
My dad’s beloved new Tata Safari Dicor looked as if it had been through hell. It had taken an enormous beating on our road trip from Guwahati, Assam to Tawang, nestled high up in Arunachal Pradesh. The stupendous dose of vicious offroading for my homies and me had taken a severe toll not so much on us but more on the car. I chalked down a list of the DAMAGES.
Body scratches, mud smeared body, windshield and windows; mud clad tyres, noodles smeared dashboard, seats stained with sauce and booze and a smelly cabin. If my father happened to see his car in this shape he just might take up hunting again, and I would certainly be his first kill. I was lucky to have made home before my parents, who were to return from their UK trip the very next day.
We had driven through some of the most inhospitable terrains in this part of the world; fast current streams and rivers; narrow mountain roads that were more of donkey-trails, on the sides of which awaited death. It was a trip of a lifetime and had quenched my thirst for offroading. But now I was worried and coming to terms with reality. I was saddled with a Safari, which had literally a mud bath. The idea of facing my father’s wrath just did not give me a good feeling at all. It seemed I had very stupidly overlooked this factor when my friend Maddy had first called me with the road trip idea.
It didn’t look that bad on paper but trust me; the new car looked pathetic even after scrubbing for more than two hours. The wheels had lost its luster and so had the paint of its shine. Worst, the fenders had some scratches, which were close to gashes. And I hand not even attended to the interior. After a quick lunch break, I knew that I would need every ounce of energy at my disposal; I set to work once again.
By a stroke of luck I found my father’s auto maintenance kit in one corner of the garage and I knew everything was going to be all right now. First I ensured that the entire car was free of mud. I lit a cigarette and puffed at it in between adding one teaspoonful of Amway car wash shampoo costing Rupees 219 into a bucket holding 4 litres of water. I then used a sponge and worked up a lather so that it loosened the dirt from the car when applied. After giving the car a thorough sponging I wiped it off with a damp cloth. I was quite happy with the result, the car was showing a glaze already but that wasn’t good enough for me or rather for my father.
With the shampooing bit done it was now time for the windshield and the windows to receive some pampering. For a windshield and window cleaner I had at my disposal a 250ml bottle of Eurogold windshield cleaner spray, which cost a meager Rupees 75. All I had to do was spray the cleaner at the windshield and windows and then wipe it off with a piece of clean dry cloth, the result was sheer magic. With the windows shinning brightly I decided to give the tyres a bit of polishing as well. I sprayed Eurogoldsuper tyre foam on the tyres and rubbed it off with a clean dry cloth resulting in a rich shine, they looked almost new to the eye. For Rs. 323 I guess there couldn’t have been a better foam tyre shiner than the Eurogoldsuper.
After the initial bit of facial pampering, I decided to bring out the big guns, the scratch remover, polish and wax. Armed with an Aeroshot top cut paint cleaner and a piece of dry cloth I went to war with the hairline scratches on the Safari. At a price of Rupees 40 for a 50gm tube the Aeroshot paint cleaner is not only cheap but is highly efficient as well, and this I can say with surety after having witnessed the magic that unfolded in front of my eyes.
Upon applying a gentle dose of the cream I rubbed it off thoroughly with the dry piece of cloth and MAGIC, there was no sign of the scratches to be seen anywhere. Satisfied with my work so far I lit another cigarette and picked up a bottle of Autoglaze car polish from the maintenance kit. I was surprised at how cheap these things were; my bottle of Autoglaze car polish cost only Rupees 180 but the work it did was invaluable. After I was done with giving a generous rub to the car, which I had smeared with the polish I was pleased to see the high-gloss that was emitting from the Safari.
The effect of the Autoglaze car polish is long lasting and has a long lasting coating which protects the cars finishing. With the polishing done, I was almost at the end of the exterior beautification of the car, the only thing that remained to be done was to apply a bit of Waxpol car wax which would ensure that the glaze and the shine in the car remains for over a long period of time. After a tiring and grueling 2 hours I was done with the exterior of the car.
What lay in front me was a black shining beauty; I couldn’t even imagine that only a few hours ago the car was a mess of mud, dirt and filth. With the exterior looking spanking new, I turned my attention to the interior. The interior carried a pungent odor, an odor that I quite couldn’t put a name to. It smelled something of a cross between tomato sauce, cheap noodles and weed. I took care of this with a generous spray of my Paco Rabanne perfume, in no time my father’s car smelt of lush green meadows of daisies, which you could almost see if you closed your eyes for a few seconds.
The dashboard which was filthy with sauce and god knows what other stains was made spanking new with the can of Com-raid dashboard shiners which I had found in the kit; all I had to do was spray it and rub off any excess with a soft clean piece of cloth. The filthy dashboard in no time was transformed into a shiny dashboard; suddenly the interior of the Dicor looked a million dollars. But there was still one glitch that I had to take care of. The upholsteries on which four unwashed guys had eaten four different kinds of foods on four different days and had smeared with four different kinds of stains were the worse hit. For a brief terrifying second, I could almost imagine the terrifying look on my fathers’ eyes when he saw what state the fine leather upholstery of the Dicor lay in.
What I had in my hands to counter this was a can of Com-tuff – foaming upholstery cleaner, which I sprayed on the leather-upholstered seats and on the carpets and mats. When I was done there was not a single dirty spot to be seen anywhere, I was quite amazed and glad. Amazed at the work of the upholstery cleaner, and glad that I was done with the car, done with cleaning it.
It had taken me a better part of 4 hours to transform the car from filth in 4 wheels to a shining star on 4 wheels. By the end of the day I was terribly tired and exhausted, trust me, cleaning a car of the size of the Tata Safari to this extent is no child’s play. The next day I went to the airport to pick up father and mother. For a full minute, dad stood and just watched the car; I knew he liked what he saw. ‘Thanks beta for looking after my car’ he said, ‘ looks like you dint take it out of the garage even once after we left,’ he continued, if only he knew.
