Whether your car is an obsession to the extent you will spend hours endeavouring to produce the 'showroom' finish, or you find it a real chore just to keep it respectable there are tips and products to help, which ever way you clean your car.

There are many products available today that can make a little effort go a long way and others that will give outstanding results if you are prepared to put the effort in. I for one rarely have a complete weekend spare, to fully clean my car inside and out, so I look for items that will give good results on a budget with limited time. Unfortunately my results could be improved if I put more time in not necessarily more money.

We have put together an impartial view from various readers giving advice based on experience on how to obtain the best results from your time and effort, from cheap and cheerful based on a budget, to the more expensive products that require a little more effort.

Apart from obvious items like Car Shampoo and Polish for the outside and Dashboard and Upholstery cleaners for the inside, we look at cleaning the Engine, Door and Boot trim, mirrors, Windows, Wheels and many other hard to clean areas.

See also our sections on 'clean your car seats', 'how to wash your car' and 'how to clean your car' as they have handy hints on which techniques work best with which products.

However you choose to clean your car there can't be many things that are more satisfying than transforming your pride and joy from something that is hardly recognisable into a gleaming thing of beauty that reminds you why you paid ( and carry on paying) an unthinkable amount of money for it.