Will keeping your car clean mean better resale?

Keeping your car clean and tidy will make it easier to sell or trade in when you’re ready to buy something newer, but you don’t need to be utterly subservient to your car.

And you certainly shouldn’t think for a moment that weeks of personal labour and gallons of vinyl protector or polish will be worth thousands of dollars more for your trade-in five years from now.

It doesn’t work that way. When the valuer is looking at your car he or she may allow you an extra few hundred bucks if the car has been garaged every night, only used at weekends, shows little wear and tear and is roadworthy. Some extra pennies too if it has been serviced in accordance with the manufacturer’s schedule and has travelled less than 15,000km a year.

But what you will get back for your trade-in is more likely determined by how much it will cost the dealer to place your car on the used lot for sale. And the dealer can usually have a car tidied up quite cheaply.

The value of your car as a trade-in will also be determined by having the right options  and an appealing but inoffensive paint colour. Make sure the registration is paid up and the car is roadworthy too.

The same comments apply if you’re selling your car privately; chances are very strong that no matter how presentable it is, your car will be ‘competing’ for buyers with other cars of similar type and specification that may be equally presentable or cheaper. Buyers won’t necessarily pick the difference between your car and that of someone else from images on a web page.

People do take car care a little too seriously at times. And for some of them, it’s a hobby or a passion, rather than a strategy to optimise resale value at trade-in time.

Some older readers might recall Kingswood Country’s Ted Bullpit saying that no one was taking his Kingswood; he’d just shampooed the mudflaps.

A younger generation may relate better to Walt Kowalski from the Clint Eastwood movie, ‘Gran Torino’ – and his Ford coupe that was in better condition than when it left the factory.

There’s a little matter of taking pride in your car’s appearance but that has little to do with how much you expect to receive for it when you trade it in. The Ted Bullpits and Walt Kowalskis of the world will not sell their car – ever*.

But for those who fully intend to trade their present car for a new one up to about five years of age, the modern car will cope with occasional neglect without buckling under the strain. It doesn’t require religious obeisance with chamois and dust cloth every weekend.

As long as the car is maintained in accordance with the service schedule, kept roadworthy and washed regularly, it will be worth about the same at trade-in time as a car that has been obsessively mollycoddled.

Obviously, the typical family car will endure the occasional accident. All the care and attention in the world won’t prevent such things happening.

It could be the kids dropping chocolate-coated ice cream on the upholstery, the family pet throwing up in the back seat, your partner leaving congealed coffee build-up in the cupholders and your own misadventure with tartare sauce dribbling out of a fishburger on the driver’s seat fabric.

Outside, the car is under repeated attack – droppings from birds and bats, cat’s footprints, tree sap and the sort of things that aren’t just ‘buffed out’, such as stone chips, kerbed alloy wheels and grazed paint on the bumper from touch parking, to name just a few.

If it’s a blemish that can be cleaned easily, do so straight away. Don’t surrender to procrastination; the longer you leave a stain in a fabric weave, the more it will bake into the fabric, making it harder to remove down the track.

There are after-market accessories available to keep the car protected and save you money and time. These include seat covers, a dash protector, a sunlight reflector for the windscreen, mudflaps, and bonnet and headlight protectors. These accessories can look tacky, but they will keep harmful UV rays and carelessly dropped food particles from damaging your car’s interior in the longer term, and the bonnet protector and mudflaps will naturally reduce the likelihood of stones damaging the paintwork.

There’s a school of thought that the service intervals recommended by car manufacturers are inadequate and you, the owner of a new car, should have the engine oil and filter changed at the half-way point between services.

Frankly, we dispute that. Unless the vehicle concerned is subjected to very harsh operating conditions, changing the oil more frequently than recommended is mostly a waste of money – especially if you plan to offload the car within three to five years anyway. Changing the oil at 5000km intervals rather than every 10,000km won’t earn you more money back from the dealer taking the car off your hands.

The car companies not only set service intervals that are appropriate for your vehicle in normal operation, they also entice you to stick to the schedule with capped-price servicing, which is often cheaper than ad hoc servicing.

Owners that do intend to keep the car longer than five years will probably need to be a little more attentive right from the start.

Even sophisticated modern fabrics and plastics that are chosen for their ability to deflect UV light and resist staining will eventually surrender to the sun’s harsh glare. And while suppliers to the car companies spend millions each year developing durable, high-tech coatings that will remain lustrous for years of working life, the paint too will inevitably fade.

We live in a disposable society, and at some point – unless the car is collectible – the aggregated wear and tear will reduce the car’s resale value to zilch. It may rise in value at the 30-year mark, if you keep it that long and it remains largely unmarked and restorable.

But even a car that has seen the best years of its life, and yet falls a long way short of its 30th birthday, can be worth something to a buyer. Here’s a case history to illustrate what you might expect for a one-owner car that’s already over a decade old.

Holden Astra City Olympic Edition manual sedan.
Purchased from new in 2000 for $22,000 on the road.
Maintained according to service schedule, with timing belt changed at 60,000km

Cosmetic blemishes:
• Ingrained chocolate in seat fabric,
• Sticky food and drink substances in cupholders,
• Scratches on rear bumper from loading prams, pushers and portacots in the boot,
• Hand prints left in the top coat from kids placing sweaty palms on the bonnet and front guards on hot days.

Preparation for sale:
• All windows and windscreen cleaned inside and out with glass cleaner,
• Seats brought back to life with upholstery cleaner and much elbow grease,
• Carpets (including boot) thoroughly vacuumed,
• Vinyl surfaces (undamaged) sprayed with vinyl protector to remove build-up,
• Car washed and waxed,
• $200 investment with local detailer up the street to have hand prints removed.
Car sold privately for $4500 in 2013 with roadworthy certificate and fewer than 100,000km on the odometer.

Important point here: Even cars that have spent their entire working life – 13 years, in this case – carting around a family can be brought back from dog-eared to above average in the space of a day.

* Ted did eventually trade in the Kingswood for – what else? – a Commodore.