Car Cleaning Tips

This time of the year is car cleaning season for us northerners! It's been a long winter, and no one likes to clean their car in subfreezing temperatures! Lots of snow and ice in the car makes for a tough job, but someone's gotta do it! I've sent my car for detailing a few times, but sometimes you just have to make time to do it yourself. After all, a good detail job is expensive and can be tough to schedule when you need your car everyday!

I thought I'd share a few things I do to keep my car clean. During sports season, I swear I spend more time and eat more meals in my car than I do at home! Over time, quite an assortment of things build up. Since I've had a van, I've always kept a garbage can in the back. Does anyone else do this? If there's a can, less stuff seems to end up on the floor. 

With three boys, I also find that floor liners are life savers. The ones that are laser cut to your car's dimensions are awesome. Spills stay contained and you can take them out and rinse them off when they get sticky (and they do!). The downfall is that they can be hard to get in and out of the back of a van, but my carpet looks like new! I've purchased a few brands, including Weather Tech and a brand called Smart Liner that I found on Amazon that I could get quicker (but at about the same price as WT). If you're price shopping or want to take a look at what I ordered for my current van on Amazon, here is my affiliate link to the 2021 Pacifica mats. They come in all sorts of makes and models:

 

My husband is a big car fanatic and has always kept a car cleaning bucket around. He's gotten many gift sets with detailing stuff, but when I am cleaning out the inside of my car, I try to keep it simple. Honestly, the best stuff is what I use in the house. My Norwex cleaning cloths do it all, from cleaning the seats to the trim and windows. I will admit, I like the shine the Armor All leaves on the dash and still use that to finish off my cleaning job. 

It takes me a long time to clean out my car, but not nearly as long as it might if I didn't have a garbage can and the floor liners. Perhaps the biggest time saver for me is the seat covers. Ever since we started putting car seats in our vehicles, we have put down car seat covers. We don't but the custom fit covers or anything, just something to go underneath where the kids sit. No one is in a carseat anymore, but we still use the seat covers. They go in the wash and have saved my seats from chicken nugget sauce, any number of beverages and muddy feet crawling to the back. I found one I really liked and sent them along in my last van for the new owners and promptly got myself a new set. They've inexpensive and will save you a lot of seat cleaning in the long run. It even keeps dog hair out of the seats too! I'll post my Amazon affiliate link below for the Ohuhu seat covers. You can get them in multiple sets, depending on how many you need. 

Happy Car Cleaning! Let me know how your car cleaning adventures go and if you have any tips, leave them in the comments below! Thank you for reading the Home Ericanomics Blog and don't forget to share the blogs and follow on Facebook!