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How to Clean, Wax and Detail Your Car: Expert Tips

Here are some tips from Popular Mechanics Magazine on how to clean and wax your car:

Cleaning and waxing are the most basic maintenance tasks for a car owner. But doing it right—without hazy paint, dull headlights and crud in the cracks—takes expertise. Make the finish on the exterior and interior last as long as the mechanicals with these pro cleaning tips.

Guess what? The median age of cars on the road is creeping up. But thanks to industry-wide improvements in quality, cars are morebumper repair Orange County reliable than they were only a decade ago. One hundred thousand miles was the watershed number that labeled a car as “old” back in the day. Now, it’s not uncommon for a vehicle to last twice that many miles before something too expensive to fix forces it into the scrap yard. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: The paint, body and interior have twice as much time marinating in the elements to lose that factory-fresh ­patina and start looking like Jed Clampett’s pickup. So how does a vehicle’s condition affect its market price? We looked up the trade-in ­value of a 2000 Honda Accord with 100,000 miles at edmunds.com. The site says that in excellent condition, it’s worth just about five grand in trade. Downgrade that rating to average and you’ll lose over $2000. Here’s how to protect your investment–and maximize its value down the road.

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