Cold winter weather will be here before we know it. Here are some tips to help preserve your car's interior & exterior.

Interior:

1. Make sure to give the carpets a full vacuuming and cleaning to keep dirt from getting ground in all winter. I have found the best floor mats are those thick rubber ones with the troughs in them to collect water & snow.
2. Clean the seats/dash/door panels.
3. Give the windows a good cleaning because the high humidity of fall/winter will insure that any film on the inside of the window will try to obscure your vision.

Trunk:

1. Give this area a good vacuuming and clean out trash and unnecessary stuff.
2. A word about extra weight for winter "traction". Lots of people still believe that you should carry extra weight in the trunk or pickup bed of a rear wheel drive vehicle to help with traction. Actually, this is very BAD for traction on snow/ice. The extra weight is just more mass to get moving and make turns. Less weight is actually better! A small bag of sand or even wood chips is OK to keep for use under tires on ice, but otherwise don't put in extra weight. The best way to get better winter traction is to have winter tires or snow tires with lots of biting edges and big spaces in the tread.
3. Put together a winter emergency kit. This should include a couple of candles, matches or lighter, a couple of cans to hold the candles, an extra blanket, flashlight and extra batteries, a bottle of water and even emergency flares or triangles. Put this in a box and tie it down so it can't come loose.

Exterior:

1. Give the outside of your car a good detail with a wash, then a good waxing. Pay special attention to getting dirt from the inside of the wheel wells, and wiping down and waxing the inner edges of the doors, door jams and sills, and even the inner edges of the trunk lid and hood where rust can start.
2. Clean the outside of the glass and consider a treatment like Aquapel. Also just before winter is a great time for a new set of wiper blades.