Winter… it just drags on. After the holidays are over, it just feels like a dead period that runs together in a monotonous crawl until you finally emerge on the other side of the season with warm weather. Until the season changes, however, we are stuck in that boring series of weeks where all we can do is wait. Or are we? While we may not be able to do everything we want to with the vehicles we keep in storage for the winter, there are still some ways to stay entertained and keep ourselves busy while we bide our time for the spring weather.
First, the obvious. Anything you need to address in terms of maintenance with your summer fun car should be performed if you haven’t already. However, if you’re like me, you probably took care of that stuff at the beginning of the season, so now you feel like you’re just waiting around. This is the worst feeling, but can be avoided with our next tip.
If you have finished your maintenance and summer prep work, we suggest a deep cleaning. I don’t mean just wiping everything down. I mean taking the interior apart, getting some picks, cue tips, and detailing products and going to town on your car. Inside, outside, underneath, in the wheel wells, in the trunk, under trim pieces, and in the engine bay should all be detailed. If you have to, rent a steam extractor and clean the carpets thoroughly. You’d be surprised how much gunk, grime, dirt, and other contaminants are hiding inside even a clean looking car. If you have nothing to do, go do a thorough clean! You won’t regret the results if you take your time and go over everything.
This next idea plays off of the cleaning. Chances are, even if you’re finished with your maintenance and have all the parts in your car you think you want, that deep cleaning is going to reveal something. Even if it is just one thing you aren’t happy with, what’s the excuse not to tackle it? The benefit of deep cleaning, besides the results themselves, is that you will identify problem areas or areas you can improve as you go over every part of your car. Whether that is a new shift knob or a complete exhaust system, it doesn’t matter. You will likely find something to do that will keep you busy, at least for a few weeks.
Lastly, if you have done everything you need to maintenance wise, tackled a truly deep cleaning, and made a few tasteful upgrades, but still have a few weeks before consistently nice weather, fear not. We have one last suggestion. Go beat on your winter car! If you are driving something in the winter that you don’t have as much love for as your fun summer car, beat on it! It’s not like you’ll need to rely on it long-term with spring around the corner. Take it on a back road run, do donuts in the snow, drive it as hard as you absolutely want. Just because it’s a beater doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.
