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4 Ways To Keep Your Car Clean and Coronavirus-Free It is of utmost importance to clean cars more often, especially before getting into it, to keep it free from spreading infections

By Mihir Mohan

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COVID-19 has proven to be one of the most severe viruses of our lifetime. Naturally, it has become essential to take all necessary steps to reduce its spread by keeping surroundings coronavirus-free. However, you need to quarantine by reducing travel, practice social distancing for the next few weeks, and avoid going out as much as possible. While these are the basics, there are other important steps you should exercise to minimise the risk of getting infected by the virus. Many people are taking it with ease and think that going out by car would not cause any infection.

But, do you know your cars are the carriers of dust, bacteria and grime, and all these things act as carriers for the virus. For this reason, it is of utmost importance to quarantine your car and clean it more often, especially before you get into it, to keep it free from coronavirus.

Before you go anywhere in your car, make sure that you are sanitising it. Here are a few necessary steps that you need to take to disinfect your car.

Vacuum your car regularly

Dust particles get attracted to your car and get collected in it. This is why it is best to vacuum your car regularly as it will minimise infections. Make sure that you scrub the carpets, pedals, lever and the floor mats as well. Besides this, deep clean your car's seats using soapy water and have it disinfectant-cleaned from professionals. If the seats are made up of fabric, virus gets soaked and might cause infections.

Clean the high-touch surfaces

There are several surfaces in your car you usually touch more frequently such as the steering wheel, knobs, switches, screens, and buttons, among others. Thus, to prevent yourself from infections, make sure that you clean these surfaces by using an interior cleaner. If you do not have the cleaner, you can make ammonia-based solution to clean yourself. If you are preparing the solution, make sure that the cleaner is diluted. This is because if it is acidic, it may cause damage to the display glass or plastic of the screen. For this reason, it is best if you apply the solution on the cleaning pad or a cotton cloth first and then clean surfaces.

Do not forget to notice the grey areas

Although there are fewer instances that you touch certain areas such as the headliner, headrest and the window glass in your car and come in contact with, make sure that you need to clean such areas as well. Besides, do remember to wipe the door handles from inside as well as outside because you do come in contact with these areas every time and are unavoidable. Besides, we recommend you to keep a hand sanitiser, a mask and wet wipes in your car and use them before you touch any such areas. The idea of keeping these things is to keep you safe from viruses and infections.

Disinfect the HVAC unit

The HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) unit circulates air in a car's cabin, thus may carry virus. And at this time of the coronavirus outbreak, it is necessary to deep-clean the complete system including the air filter. Since summers are around the corner, it is the peak time to get the disinfectant cleaning done. Not just the air-conditioner, you need to make sure that you remove and clean the cabin filter. It is located behind the glove compartment.

In conclusion

After disinfecting your home and workplace, it is probably your car that you need to clean and disinfect. If anyone else showing symptoms of coronavirus has travelled in your car; then you must disinfect your car to ensure your well-being. Follow these ways to reduce the risk of spread and keep your car coronavirus-free.

Mihir Mohan

Founder & CEO, Pitstop

Mihir Mohan is the Founder & CEO of Pitstop, a leading Car Service network. Founded in 2015 in Bangalore, Mihir has expanded Pitstop to Delhi,Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad with a steady increase in network growth and a repeat customer base. 

With a B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur, Mihir started his career at Virtusa and later worked at BEA Systems post which he moved on to the Entrepreneurial world with N-Net Technologies, followed by Unamia. N-Net Technologies was a Start-Up aimed at the Real-Time tracking of shipping containers using RFID, GPS and GSM domain while Unamia was a private label kidswear for 0 to 8 yrs old.

Transparency in services, Economical in costs and Convenience for customers was the prime concern that Mihir identified as the chief concerns amongst car service centre visitors and he implemented it in a working business model with Pitstop.

As a first generation, but serial entrepreneur Mihir tackles & approaches complex problems which need to be broken down into workable and step-wise solutions. 

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