Up until recently I had been neglecting my 1997 Black Jetta. She used to get automatic washes once every 8 to 10 months (yep that’s months, not days and not weeks), or if I was in a generous mood I would wash her myself at one of those coin-ops.
A month or so back I was searching the web to find out how to get rid of the awful smell that keeps coming from the AC unit, and I stumbled upon Autopia! Needless to say that I found out much more than just about the smell.
After spending 5 hours straight gobbling up loads of information, when I stepped out; it was drizzling lightly, a cool breeze was blowing, there were no leaves on the trees and no flowers on the plants otherwise I am sure the leaves would have rustled and the flowers would have given out a sweet fragrance. It was just the right moment, and suddenly the clouds parted and sun hit my Jetta, the light reflected into my eyes and I fell in love again. In that reflection I saw all her swirl marks and scratches, and I started to realize what a jerk I had been to such a faithful car.
Right at that moment I decided to mend my ways, and have been trying to make it up to her ever since... I made up my mind that I will do the best for her, even though I don't have much resources (live in an car unfriendly apartment complex :-( ). I figured I should take small steps, worried that I might push her away otherwise. So I decided to start out with her windows. After much reading and planning I took her out to a coin-op. I could tell right away that she wasn't excited at all. The weather was nice so there were a lot of people there. Damn! I should have made reservations I thought. Anyhow, after waiting for what felt like eons we finally got some alone time.
I am positive that her
headlights flashed when I took out the real sheepskin mitt and Meg’s Gold class shampoo. I had barely washed the windows, when the coin-op said times up, and the people behind me started to look angry. I told her not to worry as I had already planned around this problem.
I took her to a nice shaded spot, and took out the three gallon bottle of reverse osmosis'ed very soft water. Given the lack of a continuous water supply, I took out the water bottle from my gym bag and used it to squirt the water to rinse her. It worked quite well.
It was such a rush for both of us when I proceeded to clay her windscreen and the rear screen. I used a quarter of the Clay Magic blue bar along with their QD. After I was done, I could not believe that she had such smooth windows. Followed that with another nice rinse, and then brought out the 1Z Glas polish. After a lot of rubbing of the polish on her windshield I realized that the wiper marks were just not going away. I guess some wounds are just too deep to heal.
But I wasn't going to get discouraged by that. After rinsing her again, I cleaned all her windows with Einszett Windscreen Clear (Scheibenklar). Then I realized that I had forgotten to bring the paper towels. So I used the Costco MF’s only to realize that I had washed them along with the whites, and so all that lint from whites was clinging to them. Stupid me! Anyhow I cleaned with them, and then followed with the only unwashed MF I had in my car.
Her windows were gleaming, and she looked very happy. Then to bring this date to a perfect end, I topped her windows with Aquapel. Started with the windshield and applied to all her windows. It started to bead right away, and it didn’t seem that an even layer of it was getting applied. After waiting for 5 minutes I buffed it with a MF. Didn’t have enough left to do a second application. I was getting a little worried about how effective it was going to be. I finally brought her back home, and a feeling of guilt and helplessness took over me when I had to part her out in the open.
Ever since that date, she has completely occupied my mind. I find myself thinking and reading all the time, about the different ways I can show her how much I love her. I have been anxiously waiting for another date so I can take it to the next level. It rained yesterday, and I was amazed by the way the water was flying off of her windshield even at the speed of only 35 mph. I felt happy that I did something nice for her. I hope she was also feeling happy.
It might just work out between the two of us…
I would like to end this with a big thanks to all you folks who have made autopia such a great source of information and helpful advice, and have helped me realize how much I can love.
And I hope my wife never gets to read this :-)
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