Is It Worth Valeting Your Car Before You Sell or Part-Exchange It?

A man drove onto a dealer’s forecourt in Purley last spring with a five-year-old estate car, mechanically sound, full service history, nothing wrong with it at all. He was quoted £1,200 less than the guide price he’d checked online that morning. The car had dog hair on the back seats, a faint damp smell, and enough brake dust on the…

Most mobile valeting companies won’t tell you this, because it doesn’t help them get bookings: sometimes, a hand car wash is genuinely the right call, and paying for a full mobile valet would be a waste of your money. We’d rather you knew that upfront. We’ve been valeting and detailing cars across Croydon, Bromley and Surrey for over 30 years,…

Ask five valeting companies in Croydon what a full valet costs and you’ll get five different answers. Some quote you over the phone in ten seconds flat. Some won’t give you a figure until they’ve seen the car. And at least one will dodge the question entirely until you’ve already booked a slot and they’ve turned up on your driveway.…

A customer in South Croydon once handed over a five-litre tin of paint that had gone over inside her Land Rover. Not spilled – gone over, properly, across the seats, the carpets, into every seam of the boot. Most people would have written the interior off. It took four hours and a lot of patience, but the car came out…

If your car’s looking dustier than usual this August, you’re not imagining it, and it’s not just pollen. Croydon has been mid-way through one of its busiest stretches of roadworks in years – closures and lane restrictions have been running across Coulsdon, Purley, Selsdon, Thornton Heath and New Addington right through the school summer holidays, with Croydon town centre’s tram…