Just bought a new car? Five things worth doing in the first month

A new car is the easiest one to keep looking good, because you're preserving a finish rather than recovering one. It's also the point where a few decisions make a large difference three years later.

Five things worth doing early.

1. Inspect the paint properly, in daylight

This surprises people: a lot of new cars already have swirl marks at handover. They're transported, stored outdoors, and then washed and prepped at the dealership — often quickly, often with the same sponge and bucket that did the last twenty cars.

Get the car into direct sunlight and look along the panels at an angle. If you see fine circular scratching, that's from the prep, not from you. It's much easier to deal with now than after two years of it building up.

Also worth checking while you're there: panel gaps, any chips on the leading edge of the bonnet, and marks in the door shuts.

2. Decide about protection before you start driving it

This is the one genuinely time-sensitive decision. Protection is applied to bare, corrected paint. The less the car has been washed and driven, the less correction it needs first — which makes it cheaper and takes less clear coat off.

Broadly: a ceramic coating for chemical resistance, gloss and easy washing; paint protection film on the front end for physical protection against stone chips. They do different jobs and they're often combined — film on the impact areas, coating over everything.

3. Protect the interior while it's still clean

Interior protection is far more effective applied to a factory-fresh cabin than to one that's been lived in for a year.

• Light leather stains from denim dye transfer. That blue-grey tint on cream bolsters isn't dirt — it's your jeans, and once it's soaked in it's a job to remove. A leather coating stops it soaking in at all.
• Fabric seats and carpets take a fabric protector that makes spills bead instead of soaking through.
• Alcantara and suede mark permanently and are worth protecting before the first coffee.

4. Sort out how the car gets washed

Decide this now, because the default is the worst option. The local hand wash with brushes and one bucket will visibly swirl a new car within months.

Either learn to do it safely yourself — here's the method — or put it on a schedule with someone who will. What you want to avoid is the car going three months and then getting attacked with whatever's nearest.

5. Deal with damage immediately

A few things get dramatically worse if left, particularly in summer:

• Bird mess. Acidic, and can etch into clear coat within hours in hot weather. Soften with a spray and lift it — never wipe it off dry.
• Tree sap. Hardens and bonds. Easy to remove in the first days, a proper job after a month.
• Fuel spills down the side of the car strip protection and can stain.
• Stone chips. Small ones can be sealed before moisture gets under the paint and starts lifting it.

Keeping a detailing spray and a clean microfibre in the boot covers most of this in the two minutes it takes.

The short version

Look at the paint in sunlight before you assume it's perfect. Get correction and protection done early, while there's least to correct. Protect the interior before it's marked, not after. And decide who washes the car before the decision gets made for you at a supermarket.

If you've just picked something up and want to know what it actually needs, send a couple of photos in daylight and we'll tell you — including if the answer is that it's fine as it is.