Give your car some kerb appeal

Are you planning to sell your car and want to maximise its potential? Or do you feel your vehicle is looking tired and want to give it a refresh?

Whatever the reason, there are plenty of ways you can improve the appearance of your car, and these tips will help you give it some kerb appeal.

The instant appeal of alloys

Replacing your standard fit wheels with alloys is a simple but effective way to transform your car’s appearance. Alloy wheels are great if you want to update the exterior to give it a more modern look.

The other benefit of alloys is that they’re often lighter than steel wheels, so they can improve steering and acceleration and provide more responsive braking.

If you already have alloys, but they’re suffering from wear and tear, an inexpensive option is to take your car to a garage that carries out alloy wheel refurbishment.

Buff up your bodywork

For a complete overhaul, you could take your vehicle to a local bodywork garage and get some costs for a respray. Or it may just need a few scratches and chips repaired.

If the scratches are minor, you can visit an auto centre and check out the range of polishes, repair paints and varnishes. However, a DIY job can make the situation much worse, so only attempt it if you’re confident of the outcome. Otherwise, have a chat with your local bodywork garage.

Clean your car inside and out

It may sound obvious but giving your car a deep clean can have a big impact. If you can’t face doing it yourself, find your nearest car valet service.

A thorough clean of the dashboard and all the interior fittings will make the car feel like new again. And don’t forget to polish the mirrors and lights.

A trick to refreshing old headlights that have become more opaque with time because of minor scratches is to use some T-cut on them to smooth them out.

As well as thoroughly cleaning and polishing the bodywork of your car, get the tyres refreshed too. Cover up white marks with tyre blackener and clean grime from the wheels.

Replace old and worn tyres

Blackener won’t be enough if your tyres are too worn and cracked. They’ll make the whole car look old as well as being a safety hazard.

If your tyres are cracked, missing hub caps, and the tread is low, invest in new tyres. Four new tyres can play a big difference to the appearance of a car. And reassure potential buyers that you maintain your vehicle.

Buy new seat covers and mats

A simple way to improve the interior of your car is to replace seat covers. These can become dirty and frayed over time, especially if you have a young family or pets that travel in the vehicle.

Fresh seat covers will work wonders in transforming your car’s interior. And you’ll probably want to get new floor mats at the same time.

Floor mats wear and stain very quickly and can become smelly if there have been spillages or mould has formed. By getting rid of the old mats and replacing with new ones, your car will instantly become cleaner – and more appealing.

Would you like advice from a friendly local garage?

Foster & Heanes offers car servicing, maintenance and repair for all makes and models of vehicles including classic and vintage cars. We can arrange free collection and delivery if you live near our Fleet or Dogmersfield service centres.