The owner of a blackened car must have brought tears to his eyes. The parking garage of the apartment complex on Velderwoude in Den Bosch was partly evacuated on Monday. One by one, fire-damaged cars were lifted onto a tow truck from a recovery company. Most viable cars then end up at a cleaning company.
One of those car cleaning companies is Purol Car Cleaning in Den Bosch. “There has already been contact with an insurance company, but nothing concrete has been received yet,” says Tim Nijssen. He is a manager at the car cleaning company that has been making cars with smoke and soot damage shine again for almost fifteen years.
1. Polish away soot damage
According to the manager, there is a well-functioning cleaning method for the soot damage. “In the company, the soot layer is tackled with a special shampoo. In most cases, this is sufficient to remove the soot from the car. We use a pre-wash shampoo. It is strong enough to remove the most stubborn dirt and therefore also to get the soot off the car.”
2. Polish the paint layer
But of course there are always exceptions. “If there is a layer of soot that is too thick, we have to polish it. That will take us a day. We use a special sanding machine to remove a few micro-millimeters from the paint layer. The paint layer is forty micro-millimeters in total. This always works well. for removing soot from the car.”
Nijssen also knows that this does not always work. “If the temperature in the parking garage was too high, the soot layer has probably burned onto the car’s paint layer. Then you can polish all you want, but it won’t work.”
3. Clean the inside
The inside of the car and under the hood are also examined. “We can clean everything, but when it is damaged by the fire, it becomes a difficult job for us.”
4. Clean upholstery
Deep cleaning is used for the upholstery of the car seats. “For example, if people have smoked in the car, we can remove 95 percent of the odors.”
5. Filter air
Sometimes the inside receives an ozone treatment. “In that case, we place a cabinet with a filter in the car. It removes certain dirty particles from the air. If the cabinet is in the car for eight hours, we have to bleed the filter for sixteen hours.”