Did you know that a vehicle’s interior can alone contain more than 800 bacteria per cm2, which is 10 times more bacteria than on a toilet seat! To avoid risks of contamination during this pandemic period, it is thus essential to frequently clean and disinfect your vehicle’s interior. Our decontamination experts give you a few tips to fight effectively reduce viruses in your car including frequency, instructions for use!
5 steps to becoming a decontamination expert
Step 1: Protect yourself
First and foremost, take the time to wash and disinfect your hands. For optimum protection, wear gloves, goggles and a mask throughout the operation.
Step 2: Ventilate the interior
Start by ventilating your passenger compartment by opening all doors and windows. Do this as regularly as possible (once a day for a few minutes) to prevent too much humidity from accumulating inside, which can cause bacteria to grow.
Step 3: Use personnel protective equipment
Prepare the right equipment. We recommend using a soft, preferably microfiber cloth to protect fragile surfaces, and a cleaning product labelled “eliminates bacteria and viruses”. To make sure that the product you use will not damage fragile surfaces such as textiles, use a product specially designed for car care. If it is labelled “virucide”, “bactericide” and “fungicide”, it’s even better!
Step 4: Clean all surfaces
As vacuuming is advised against by health regulations, it is recommended to start by removing dust from your car interior using a microfiber wipe. Then spray the product on all the surfaces. Make sure to clean the most used and most touched areas as well as all surfaces on which respiratory droplets may be spread:
- Interior surfaces:
- Steering wheel
- Gear lever
- Handbrake
- Seat belt buckles and seat belts
- Door handles
- Radio controls
- Steering column switches (turn indicator lights, wipers, cruise control)
- Armrests
- Seat position controls
- Door frames
- Exterior surfaces:
- Door handles
- Door frames
- Luggage compartment handle
- Boot release
- Car keys
Step 5: Disinfect the air conditioning system and the passenger compartment
To completely clean your vehicle, we also recommend that you disinfect the air conditioning system and the interior with a specially suited product. This will thoroughly clean and purify your vehicle’s air conditioning system while eliminating unpleasant smells and problems of bacteria and mould.
How often should you disinfect your car?
If you usually travel alone, simply cleaning the most used parts once a week will suffice, especially if you take the appropriate precautions and systematically wash your hands before getting into your car.
However, if you are transporting people from outside your household, it is safer to disinfect your car after each trip. Don’t forget to get all passengers to wear a mask.
METAL 5 – CLIM 5 SANITIZING AND DEODORISING DUO
