The Super Valet across Medway and North Kent

Town by town

What the Super Valet puts right in each part of North Kent

Gravesend and Northfleet

River town. The Thames at the Town Pier, the oldest cast iron pier in the world, puts a salt film on every car parked between the river and the A2, and the salt gets inside on wet coats and shoes through the winter. The wax on the paint and the shampooed carpets are the two halves of the answer, and the autumn Super Valet is the one to book first, so the paint goes into the salt season with a layer on it.

Dartford and Greenhithe

Crossing town. Cars here spend their lives on the M25 and the A2, and the Super Valet's exterior half is really about the wheels and the lower panels, where the brake dust and the tar collect; the wax over clean paint is what keeps next winter's film from bonding. Bluewater, opened in a chalk quarry in 1999, adds the white dust that the wax also resists.

Ebbsfleet and Longfield

New town. Ebbsfleet Garden City is past 5,000 homes, and the cars on its drives are young, parked in the open, and dusted by a building site that will run for years. A Super Valet twice a year keeps a three year old car looking one year old, and the dated photographs in the wash report are the evidence when the lease ends.

Sittingbourne and Sheppey

Coast and trade. Sand, salt and the summer in the carpets. The interior restoration is the half of the Super Valet that matters most here, and September is the month, after the last beach trip and before the gritters.

Maidstone, the Malling villages and the Downs

Family country. The county town's cars do the M20 in the week and the Kent Downs National Landscape at the weekend, which means motorway film outside and mud, grass and dog inside. The Super Valet in April takes the winter off both; the Deluxe every month keeps it there.

How it works here

A half day on the drive, twice a year

Kent County Council's primary gritting routes cover every A and B road and about 30 percent of the county's roads, and the season has run from late October to mid April in recent years. That sets the calendar. Book the first Super Valet for the first dry fortnight after the gritters stop, when the wax goes onto paint that has just lost its winter salt and the carpets lose their tide marks before they set; book the second in September, before the clocks go back, while a half day on the drive still fits inside the daylight. After the change, the 10am window is the one to take.

The booking page shows the two slot windows for your postcode once it has checked that a Network washer covers it. Someone unlocks the car at the start, the washer brings water and power and works through the outside, the wax and then the inside, and the before and after photographs arrive when it is done. Between the two Super Valets, a Deluxe Inside and Out every four to six weeks keeps the car where it was left; for a car that has gone a year or more without care, the Deep Clean is the right first booking.

The cars that book it across North Kent

• A Gravesend car between the river and the A2: the autumn Super Valet first, for the wax before the salt.
• A Dartford Crossing commuter: Super Valet in April, when the winter's brake dust and tar come off.
• A young car on an Ebbsfleet drive: twice a year, with the photographs kept for the end of the lease.
• A Sheppey family car: September, after the beach, for the interior restoration.
• A Maidstone car that does the M20 and the Downs: April and September, Deluxe in between.
• A Downs village car with a dog: the interior half is the point; book it after the muddiest months.

More on this: the Super Valet in the Medway towns and the deep clean detail explained.