We all know that cars are costly investments, but with proper care, they can easily last beyond their warranty. While there are many ways of taking care of your car, one of the most inexpensive and effortless methods is waxing a car.
But what are the benefits of waxing your car?
Waxing a car provides numerous benefits including protecting it from rust and corrosion, dirt, and oxidation. It also makes future cleaning much easier by removing contaminants that might otherwise cause scratches on the paint surface.
When you first purchase your vehicle, the paint has a glossy look. This glossy appearance will inevitably fade with use as contaminants accumulate on the surface over time leaving behind dull patches.
These dull patches eventually worsen over time and become very difficult to remove even with careful washing.
Waxing after every car wash leaves behind an invisible layer that repels dust and dirt so your car stays cleaner longer which means you have less cleaning work to do. This will also maintain that lustrous look for your vehicle.
Wax also penetrates the surface to create a flexible barrier against corrosion which is one of the principal modes of deterioration to metal parts. This flexible barrier will stop water from getting to the paint layers, thus preventing rust corrosion and pitting.
The main benefits of waxing your car include:
Car wax protects your car paintwork against scratches and the elements
Without wax, car paint gets scratched more easily when exposed to environmental factors such as bugs, bird droppings, tar, tree resin, and stones picked up while driving on busy roads.
These natural contaminants get stuck in the tiny pits of your paint’s surface which causes scratching when you wash or wipe them away with your wipers.
Over time dirt bonds with the car paint and causes patches of paint deterioration which can be difficult to repair without corrective polishing or a respray.
Car wax protects your paintwork from dirt
When wax I applied, what actually happens is that it forms a protective barrier over your vehicle’s paintwork.
Once the wax is cured, this barrier will stop dirt, grit, bugs, pollen from getting to your paintwork.
The wax also makes it easier for the dirt falls off your vehicle’s surface. This is because the unwaxed surface of your paintwork has many tiny pits, that such debris can “hook” on to.
Car wax works to fill in these pits, and thus reduces the ability of debris from hooking into these tiny pits.
Car wax protects your car paintwork from UV damage
Wax is excellent at protecting your paintwork from damage caused by exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from direct sunlight.
Without wax, UV radiation will, over time, degrade the integrity of the paintwork.
This damage happens on a molecular level and is irreversible. The only way to properly resolve paint damage caused by UV radiation is to undergo a respray, which is an expensive option.
Car wax provides your car with a glossy showroom-like finish
As alluded to earlier, waxing your car will work to fill in the majority of the tiny pits (scratches) that exist in your paintwork.
These scratches are unavoidable on unprotected surfaces. Over time, if the number of these pits is allowed to increase they will cause a less glossy, hazy effect.
This is because instead of light being allowed to reflect directly from a flawless surface directly to your eyes, it will first reflect from the many randomly angled sides of these pits resulting in a hazy, less glossy look and feel.
Car wax makes cleaning your vehicle safer
The applied wax creates a barrier over the surface of the paintwork. This reduces friction during the cleaning action, say with a sponge and soapy water.
When washing your car you will almost certainly pick up tiny particles of dirt and grit which effectively scrape across the surface.
This is unavoidable.
Wax, however, will stop these particles from scraping against the paintwork. This will help to reduce the chances of scratching your car paint during the cleaning process.
Car wax makes cleaning your vehicle easier
A waxed surface makes it easier to clean your vehicle. The barrier created by wax makes cleaning the car a smoother experience.
This is because there will be fewer pits and scratches after waxing to cause friction on your sponge and other cleaning equipment.
Car wax encourages “water beading” (or repels water)
Wax has naturally hydrophobic properties. This means that when water hits the waxed surface, the wax will try to “push” (repel) it away from the surface.
This results in what is described in a “beading effect”, and is most noticeable when it is raining, and when you are washing your car.
Without wax, the water will be more likely to spread over as much of the surface as possible, as there is no wax to repel the water. After waxing, the water separates more readily into beads of water.
The long-term benefit of this is that there will be fewer water spots and your vehicle’s paintwork will be protected from gradual oxidation.
Car wax prolongs the life of paintwork
As a result of the above points, if you regularly wax your vehicle’s paintwork, it will prolong the life and health of your vehicle’s paintwork.
Car wax hides imperfections
Even though wax does not “correct” imperfections in your vehicle’s paintwork, it will fill in these imperfections and give the illusion that the paint is glossy and has a showroom finish.
The filling of these imperfections reduces the random angles that light will reflect from the surface, thus reducing the chances of a hazy or scuffed appearance.
To be clear, though, to get the best look from waxing it is always best to polish the surface with a compound polish before waxing. Compound polish actually “corrects” imperfections by cutting away at the top layer of the paint.
This reduces the sizes of the aforementioned pits and scratches., and reduces the number of imperfections for the wax to fill in.
Car wax maintains the value of your vehicle
All of the above-mentioned benefits of regularly using car wax combine to have the overall result of maintaining the value of your vehicle.
Paintwork can be very costly to fix once allowed to degrade. So a vehicle with a well-looked after and protected paintwork surface will be more likely to hold its value.
