You bought a new car. Do these things in the first month.

A new car's paint has one month, roughly, before the first bugs, the first brine and the first automatic car wash start the slow process every Northland car goes through. Everything on this list is cheaper and better done now than in year three, and one item is cheaper done nowhere.

1. Decline the dealership "paint protection"

Most dealership paint and fabric protection packages are a sealant applied in the service bay for several hundred dollars, sometimes more than a professional ceramic coating costs. Ask what the product is and who applies it. If the answer is vague, decline it and have the paint done properly by a detailer. If it is a named ceramic product applied by a trained installer, it may be fine; ask about the correction step.

2. Wash and decontaminate the paint, even though it is new

New cars arrive with rail dust, transport film residue and the dealer's wash. A proper decontamination wash with a clay treatment pulls the embedded grit out before it is sealed in.

3. Coat or seal the paint

This is the one. A ceramic coating on a new car needs almost no correction, because there are no swirls yet, which makes it the cheapest coating the car will ever get and the one that protects the most paint life. Three, five or eight years of a surface that brine, sap, bugs and sun cannot bond to. If a coating is not in the budget, a paint sealant twice a year does most of the job for a season at a time. The coating packages. Is it worth it here?

4. Protect the interior before the first winter

• Rubber or tray floor mats before the first snow. Keep the carpet mats for summer.
• Fabric protection on cloth seats and carpet, so the first spill wipes instead of soaks.
• Leather conditioned once, and then yearly. New leather is the easiest leather to keep.
• A cargo liner if there is a dog in your future.

5. Coat the wheels and glass

Small upgrades with outsized effect: ceramic on the wheel faces means brake dust rinses off, and a glass treatment means rain sheets off the windshield at speed, which on Highway 61 in November is a safety item.

6. Learn to wash it

Touchless or hand wash with two buckets, never brushes. The swirls on a dark car come from the brush wash, and once they are there only a correction removes them. A coated car makes this easy: a rinse takes most of the dirt off.

The order

Decontaminate, correct lightly if needed, coat, then the interior protection. One visit, usually at your home, and the car is set for years. Start with a free paint assessment; on a new car it is mostly a confirmation that the paint is as good as it should be. Schedule it.