Author: Jess Cervantes

During the spring, the NC Triangle tends to get lots of pollen, with the powdery substance coating any vehicles that aren’t stored in a garage for the whole season. Beyond causing more allergy symptoms, pollen can actually damage your vehicle’s paint and clog your air filters. As you try to stop pollen from hurting your car, take a moment to learn more about why pollen is bad for cars and how to care for your vehicle during pollen season.

Why Is Pollen Bad for Cars?

Besides hurting your car’s appearance, pollen can have a few negative effects on your vehicle. For example, pollen has tiny spikes that cause it to stick to a vehicle’s exterior, with these spikes digging into the paint. When the pollen isn’t removed, it will expose your paint job to rust and oxidation. 

Pollen can also clog air filters, making your HVAC system work harder to force air through the clogged filter. A struggling HVAC system can lead to refrigerant leaks, reduced airflow in a vehicle’s cabin, and less effective cooling. Pollen can also worsen your vehicle’s air quality if you have lots of it in your filters or if it gets tracked into the vehicle.

How Long Is Peak Pollen Season?

Tree pollen in the NC Triangle typically starts around the beginning of March and will significantly increase after mid-March, with peak pollen season occurring during the first week of April. After that first week, tree pollen should continue to decrease gradually until the end of May. The yellow pollen that gets all over your car during this time frame primarily comes from pine trees, and peak amounts of it occur for about three weeks. 

5 Tips for Preparing Your Car for Spring Pollen Season

Since pollen can harm cars and the NC Triangle tends to get a lot of pollen from pine trees, it’s important to prepare your vehicle for pollen season. Whether it’s checking your filters, washing your car more often, or applying a protective wax coating, there’s a lot you can do to prevent pollen buildup on your vehicle. Learn more about how to prepare your car for pollen season below:

1. Check Your Filters

While most people worry about how pollen will make their car look or affect their paint job, it can actually mess with your engine and cabin air filters. During the spring, these filters will catch pollen and eventually become clogged. Clogged filters can cause several issues, such as harming your engine’s performance, reducing your vehicle’s air quality, and decreasing your vehicle’s airflow. 

Before the spring, have your filters checked and replace them if they’re already clogged or close to being clogged. If they’re still clean, check them in mid-spring to see if they’re clogged with pollen.

 2. Wash Your Car More Often

Wondering how often you should wash your car during pollen season? Though some sources online say you should handwash your car every other day, this amount of washing is likely overkill, especially if you have a busy schedule. Generally, handwashing your vehicle once a week is a good way to prevent too much pollen buildup and stop it from damaging your paint.

In between the weekly car washes, you can also rinse the pollen off daily with a high-pressure water hose to reduce pollen buildup and give your vehicle a cleaner appearance. Even if you do hose down your car every day, you’ll still want to handwash your vehicle weekly, as you won’t get all the pollen off your exterior with just a rinse. Handwashing your vehicle with an approved soap once a week will help loosen the pollen’s grip on your paint and protect it from pollen-related damage.

3. Use Distilled Water, Microfiber Towels, and Approved Cleaning Products While You Wash Your Car

If you’re wondering how to clean pollen off your car, review our tips for washing a car during pollen season below:

• Rinse with Distilled Water and a High-Pressure Water Hose: Begin by parking your car out in an open space, and then use your high-pressure water hose on each panel of your vehicle. Next, spray any pollen you see off of your windshield, roof, and hood. If you can, try to use distilled water during your rinses. Since distilled water doesn’t contain any minerals or impurities that would stick to your vehicle’s exterior, using it can prevent water spots and streaks.
• Wash the vehicle with approved soap and microfiber cloth: After you’ve rinsed the vehicle, get a bucket filled with distilled water, a microfiber cloth, and an approved car wash soap. Mix the soap with water before dipping the microfiber cloth in it. Once the cloth is damp, handwash your car’s exterior, gently wiping any pollen you can see off of the vehicle. Make sure to use a microfiber cloth, as these cloths are gentle on paint and excel at trapping pollen.
• Remember to clean your interior: While you might not need to clean your interior once a week, doing so at least once or twice a month is still important during pollen season. Since you can track in lots of pollen while getting in your vehicle, wipe down hard surfaces with a damp microfiber cloth and use a vacuum on your seats and floors to remove any pollen.

4. Apply a Protective Coating

Sometimes, you won’t have time to promptly remove pollen, and wax can help reduce any potential damage the pollen could do to your paint. When you apply wax to your vehicle, it will add a protective barrier between your car’s paint and the pollen. This extra protection can reduce the negative impacts of pollen and can buy you some time before you need to handwash your vehicle again. 

Alongside being protective, wax also makes it easier for you to rinse pollen off your car. Since the wax stops pollen from digging its barbs into the paint, the pollen will wash off faster, even when you’re not able to do a proper handwash. An added bonus is that wax will make your car shine! Check with your local auto shop about what wax will work best for your car, as some cheap, low-quality car waxes can actually be abrasive and harm your vehicle’s paint. 

5. Use a Car Cover When Parking Outdoors

If you park outside during the spring, the best way to prevent pollen from getting all over your car is to place a car cover over it whenever you park. These covers prevent pollen from getting on your car’s exterior in the first place, and they can significantly reduce the amount of pollen buildup, as the only chance for pollen to get on it will be while you’re driving.

When you don’t have a car cover, you can reduce the amount of pollen that gets on your vehicle by paying attention to where you park. If there’s a parking spot right beside some trees or other flowering plants, look elsewhere for a parking space. Generally, areas with fewer plants and trees will be better, as you won’t be parking right beside pollen producers. 

Choose a Chapel Hill Tire for Vehicle Detailing Services in the NC Triangle

If you’d rather not wash your car yourself and are looking for car detailing services in Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, or the surrounding Triangle area, Chapel Hill Tire can help. We offer interior and exterior detailing services, where we’ll thoroughly wash the interior and exterior of your car, ensuring your car is completely pollen-free by the time we’re done. Some of our detailing packages also include protective waxes, and we even offer mobile car wash and detailing services where we’ll come to you!

Check out our detailing services today. If you’re ready to receive our detailing services, please make an appointment at one of our convenient locations in the Triangle area. You’ll also want to review our coupons to see how much you can save on our services!

Winter driving comes with its own set of challenges, such as snow, ice, and freezing temperatures. Municipalities often rely on salt and other deicing products to keep roads safe. While these materials are critical for reducing accidents, they can wreak havoc on your car if not cleaned off promptly. As you try to decide whether you should take the time to wash your vehicle this winter, find out why road salt can be so damaging and how to clean it off your car.

4 Reasons to Wash Salt and Deicing Products off Your Vehicle During the Winter

When salt and deicing products aren’t quickly removed from your vehicle, they can cause several issues, such as rust and damaged paint. Learn more about the four main negative effects that salt and deicing products can cause for vehicles below:

1. Road Salt Can Accelerate Rust Formation

The biggest threat road salt poses to your car is corrosion, as road salt can cause and speed up rust formation. When a vehicle drives over road salt, water from precipitation will get on your vehicle’s metal parts. Next, the road salt’s free-floating ions will mix with the water on these parts, with the ions causing iron oxide to form faster. After iron oxide forms, a layer of rust will appear on your car’s metal parts and begin to corrode them. 

Since ions speed up the formation of rust, key parts of your vehicle are more at risk of damage. For example, brake lines, exhaust systems, suspension components, bare metal fasteners, and undercarriages can all rust over. If left unchecked, rust will weaken these parts, making it more likely they’ll break down early and need costly repairs. Like road salt, chemical deicers are also corrosive and can have the same effects on your vehicle.

2. Road Salt and Deicing Chemicals Can Harm Your Paint

While the interaction of road salt and water can reduce your vehicle’s safety and cause parts to break down faster, road salt and chemical deicers can also hurt your vehicle’s appearance. If your city just uses road salt, the salt can stick to your car’s paint and cause oxidation. When this salt isn’t cleared off, the oxidation can cause your paint to break down and parts of it to rust. 

Your vehicle’s paint is even more at risk in areas that use deicing chemicals on their roads. Modern deicers often include chemicals like calcium chloride and magnesium chloride, which can be even more aggressive than salt. These chemicals can potentially erode your car’s clear coat and paint, leading to expensive repairs.

3. Removing Salt and Deicing Products Makes Your Vehicle Safer

Alongside hurting your paint and making it more likely you need repairs, road salt and deicing chemicals can reduce your vehicle’s safety. For example, corroded brake lines, weakened suspension components, or a rusted-out undercarriage can lead to mechanical failures while you’re driving. Additionally, if rust has formed on structural components meant to protect you, an impact from another vehicle during an accident will do more damage to these components, raising your risk of serious injury.

4. Road Salt and Deicing Chemicals Can Hurt Your Vehicle’s Resale Value

When people are on the market for a car, most won’t pay top dollar for a vehicle that has lots of rust and paint damage. They also won’t want to pay much for a vehicle with an extensive repair history due to rust and corrosion. 

If you plan to sell your vehicle in the future or simply want to protect your investment, you’ll want to avoid having road salt and deicing chemicals on your car for too long. Since car wash and detailing services can help vehicles retain higher resale values, investing in these services can pay off in the long run.

How Often Should You Wash Your Vehicles During the Winter?

In general, if salt or deicing products are on the road regularly through the winter, you should wash your vehicle every 10 days (if not more frequently). Keep in mind that just rinsing your vehicle won’t remove road salt or chemical deicer residue, and spraying water on your vehicle in freezing conditions can lead to rust. As a result, your vehicle will need a full car wash. 

If it’s projected to snow in the Raleigh-Durham area and deicing chemicals and road salt are on the road, there’s a good chance they’ll wash away before the week is up due to the Triangle’s fairly mild winters. In this case, bring your car in for a car wash as soon as you’ve noticed the road salt is gone from the road. Since you won’t be picking up more road salt while driving, getting it off your vehicle should be your priority, as it will better protect your vehicle from rust.

While you can wash the road salt off yourself, a professional car wash can ensure all the road salt and deicing chemicals are completely removed. Plus, it’s much more convenient than trying to wash your car (particularly its undercarriage!) in freezing temperatures on your own. 

Choose Chapel Hill Tire for Mobile Detailing Services in the Triangle

If it’s snowed recently in the Triangle and you need help removing snow or deicing products from your vehicle, Chapel Hill Tire can help. We offer mobile detailing services in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and the surrounding Triangle area. One of our technicians can drive to your vehicle and thoroughly wash your car, removing any deicing chemicals and road salt.

Learn more about our mobile detailing and other car washing services today. If you’re ready to receive our detailing services, please make an appointment at one of our convenient locations in the Triangle area. We also recommend checking out our coupons to see how much you can save!