You have your new scooter at home and it looks so good. Want to know how to keep it that way? Keep it Clean Slip Slop Slap. Just like the sun protection message. Slip off the dirt, slop on polish and slap on a cover. Brendon Watson You have your new scooter at home and it looks so good. Want to know how to keep it that way?
Slip Slop Slap. Just like the sun protection message. Slip off the dirt, slop on polish and slap on a cover.
The first thing you need to do is to make sure the scooter is clean by washing it in the shade. Use a car wash do not use dishwashing liquid as it will remove any polish or wax on the body panels and make your paint finish look "dry and streaky". You only need a bucket of car wash and either hose or bucket (depending on your water restrictions) to rinse it with. It's best not to use high pressure water blasters particularly around the paintwork or chrome. I use two sponges for washing (buy one and cut it in half), a clean one for the body panels and a second dirty one for doing the wheels, brakes and the underside of the scoot.
Wash the whole scooter, be careful you don't go overboard around the fuel tank cap and airfilter box or you might get water in there, make sure you rinse off all the soapy water. Next step is to get it dry, a chamois/shammy is the best bet but they have to be completely wet before they work. The Scoot will still have water around it and you may need to take it for a little ride to get the rest of the water off. Be careful for the first bit as the tyres will be wet and the brakes will need a couple of applications to start working properly.
So its back home, dry and time for it to get some sunscreen in the form of polish. You want to get a basic polish or wax compound (Car ones), no cutting compound or cut and polish products. What you want to do is apply the polish to all the painted and chrome surfaces, body panels, wheels (Not the brakes or exhaust pipe) and plastic covers. If in doubt call us, all up it shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes. Polishing is something you will need to do only once a year if its hardly left in the sun or twice a year if its out there regularly, men of the cloth (thats polishing cloth) will do it more often. The way to tell when you need to re apply sunscreen (polish) is simple. If you have recently polished the bike get some water and throw it on a reasonably flat (or the least sloping) panel. If the water forms beads then you have polish on the bike, if it just runs off and there are no beads then there's no polish left.
This coat of polish forms a barrier over your paintwork protecting it not only from the sun but stone chips and small scratches. Next time you wash the scoot it will be easier as dirt does not stick to polish very well.
Some warnings now, never use tyre shine, Amourall or similar silicon based products and if you use degreaser use as lttle as possible. Why? because they get on the tyres and brakes. You will notice that unlike car tyres scooter tyres are curved on the surface and you use the side of the tyre to corner. These products are very slippery and if they get on your tyres become a lubricant bewtween the road and your tyre will causing them to lose grip and you end up on your backside.
Last but not least is to slap on a hat. Try and keep it out of the sun, if you don't have undercover parking for your scoot then buy a cover. When your out and about try and park in the shade. There's no need to go overboard just get in the habit of looking for shade. If you park under trees beware of birdshit and wash it off straight away, its nasty acidic stuff that will burn your paint. The other one to look out for is when you park near the beach. Onshore wind carries small particles of salt water that will be deposited on your scooter. Salt water + your scooter = rust. When you get home give it a small rinse and your done. published 6/02/2007 |