Just a few minutes on the internet gave us some really interesting sounding advice which, in reality, was nothing but pure garbage and things you should never do. Number one, to clean the black plastic cladding on the outside of your vehicle, or the leather upholstery on the inside of your vehicle, use peanut butter. Creamy peanut butter, because chunky might scratch. What a horrid idea! One of the most popular baits for mouse traps is peanut butter. They love the stuff. Now you’ve made the inside of your car appealing to every mouse in the neighborhood. And believe me they will eat the inside of your car. Make sure you use only proper products to deal with things like that.

Then, here’s one that’s been around forever. You can use dishwashing detergent or laundry detergent to wash your car. Well don’t do it! You see, number one, it strips all the wax off of the car, now your paint is unprotected. And number two, in some cases it can actually strip oils out of the surface of the paint, and it ages the paint.

Oh here’s a good one. Use bleach to clean your fuel system. Don’t do it! Just like you don’t put moth balls in your fuel system for better performance and better gas mileage. It doesn’t work number one, and it can do hundreds if not thousands of dollars in damage to delicate fuel system parts. And the problem is, you may not see it right away. It may be months, or a year down the road, before the issue comes up.

Alright, and here’s a good one. Toothpaste. Now headlights on automobile get hazy and cloudy. This is from the ultraviolet light from the sun. And it has to be cleaned away for the headlights to work properly.  Well, on the internet they tell you to use toothpaste, but that’s only one particular grit. It’s not the proper abrasive for the plastic, it can actually destroy some of these headlights, so don’t do it! Use a kit that is designed for it. The kit will have different types of abrasives and hand polishes to do the job properly. So watch out for these “tricks” you find on the internet. And if you have a question or comment, drop me a line, right here at MotorWeek.