How to Wash, Dry and Fold a Car Cover

Wash a car cover by hand with mild soapy water and a soft cloth, rinse it, dry it fully in the shade, and fold it loosely rather than stuffing it into the bag. That is the whole routine, and done two or three times a year it is the difference between a cover that lasts years and one that starts leaking and smelling in a single season. What ruins covers is a washing machine, hot sun and being put away damp.

How often

There is no fixed schedule. Wash it when any of these is true:

• The inner face feels gritty when you run a hand over it — this is the important one, because grit on the inside is what scratches paint.
• Water has started soaking in instead of beading off.
• It smells musty, which means it was stored damp.
• There are bird droppings, tree sap or mud on it.

For a cover in daily use on an outdoor-parked car, two or three washes a year plus the occasional shake-out is about right.

Washing, step by step

1. Shake it out and brush off dry dirt first. Loose dust and leaves come off far more easily dry than wet. Use a soft brush, never a stiff one.
2. Lay it flat. A clean floor, a terrace or over a railing. Avoid rough concrete, which abrades the outer coating.
3. Mix mild soapy water. A little mild detergent or car shampoo in a bucket of cold or lukewarm water. No bleach, no hot water, no harsh degreaser.
4. Wash with a soft cloth or sponge. Work in sections, outer face first, then the inner face — the inner face matters most, because that is the surface touching your paint.
5. Brush the zip line, if it has one. Grit in zip teeth is the main cause of a zip that jams and eventually splits.
6. Rinse thoroughly. Leftover detergent attracts dust and can affect how water beads off. Rinse until the water runs clear.
7. Do not wring or twist it. That creases the coating. Let the water run off instead.

Three things not to do

Do not machine wash or tumble dry. A drum puts creasing and shear stress on a coated fabric and strains the seams, elastic hem and zip. Machine washing is the fastest way to lose a cover's waterproofing.

Do not dry it in direct sun. Drying a wet coated fabric in hard sun is harsher on it than ordinary use. Dry it in the shade, with air moving. The care instruction on Bull Rider covers is simply to keep them away from hot surfaces — the same logic applies to drying.

Do not use a pressure washer. High-pressure water forces its way through seams and can lift coatings. A bucket and cloth is the right tool.

Drying properly

This is the step people rush, and it is the one that decides whether the cover develops mould.

Hang it over a railing or line in the shade so air reaches both faces, and turn it once so the inner face dries as thoroughly as the outer. It must be completely dry — not nearly dry — before folding. A cover folded slightly damp will smell within a week and may be marked by mould in a month.

Check the hem and the seams specifically; the elastic channel holds water long after the panels feel dry.

Folding it so it goes back in the bag

Folding matters for two reasons: a well-folded cover fits its storage bag and is quicker to spread out next time, and repeated hard creases in the same place eventually crack a coating.

1. Lay it flat with the inner face upward, so the clean side ends up protected on the inside of the bundle.
2. Fold both sides inward to the middle, so it becomes a long strip the width of the car's roof.
3. Fold that strip in half lengthways again if it is bulky.
4. Roll it from one end rather than folding it into squares. Rolling avoids sharp repeated creases and makes it easier to spread from front to back on the car.
5. Slide the roll into its storage bag. The Bull Rider 360° cover ships with one; keep it, because it stops the cover picking up grit in the boot.

Vary where the folds fall from one time to the next so the same lines are not creased repeatedly.

Storing it

• Keep it in its bag, not loose in the boot where it collects grit that later ends up against your paint.
• Store it somewhere dry. A damp corner of a basement garage will do over months what rain cannot do in a night.
• Keep it away from hot surfaces — the exhaust tunnel area of a boot floor, or anything near an engine bay.
• If you are putting it away for a season, make sure it is clean and dry first. Dirt left on fabric for months sets.

Small repairs

A small tear is worth fixing early, because fabric tears spread along the direction of the weave. A patch kit or a tailor's reinforced stitch along a seam will usually hold. What is not worth repairing is a cover whose coating has gone — once water soaks through across whole panels rather than at one spot, it is no longer waterproof and is holding moisture against your paint.

Bull Rider covers are warranted against manufacturing defects only, so a seam that failed early is worth raising; wear from use is not covered.

Common questions

Can I wash a car body cover in a washing machine?
No. Hand wash with mild soapy water and a soft cloth. A machine strains the seams, hem and zip and damages the waterproof coating.

Can I use normal washing powder?
A small amount of mild detergent is fine. Avoid bleach, strong detergents and fabric softener.

How do I get the musty smell out?
Wash it, rinse it thoroughly, and dry it completely in the shade with air moving on both faces. The smell is a drying problem, not a cleaning problem.

Can I iron out the creases?
No. Heat damages the coating. Creases relax on their own once the cover has been fitted a couple of times.

Can I reproof a cover that has started leaking?
Spray-on reproofers may help a little on light surface wetting, but they do not restore a coating that has broken down over whole panels.

How long should a cover last?
With a correct fit and this routine, several years of daily outdoor use. Covers usually fail first at the seams and hem, not in the middle of a panel.

Where to go next

• Does a car cover damage your paint? — a clean cover is half of this.
• Car cover fabric and GSM explained.
• Car body cover buying guide for India.
• Shop car body covers.