Vehicle Interior Cleaning Tips and Tricks for Parents
We fully understand how messy vehicles can get when commuting with kids and pets. Even with all the mess prevention products out there, it’s still inevitable that your car is going to have to be cleaned. Although it’s not the most fun task in the world, it can be much easier with the following tips and tricks.
Of course, the best trick to clean your car is to prevent it from getting messy in the first place. Although this is easier said than done, there are a few products out there that can make this easier for us.
1: Integral’s Car Seat Tray
Integral’s signature car seat tray is the perfect addition to almost any car seat that has cup holders. This is the only model available that has an expandable base to grip the car seat cup holder and keep it securely in place. That means we can provide you with a tray that is big enough for meals and entertainment without having it fall out of the cup holder.
2: The Flipping Holder
Do your kids love to bring juice boxes or food pouches along for the ride? The Flipping Holder is an amazing product that prevents that inevitable juice box squeezing mess that we are all too familiar with. The universal design supports all juice boxes, tetra packs, and squeeze food pouches. Simply stand it upright for food pouches and flip it upside down for juice boxes. These are literally perfect for preventing that awful mess in the car. No more cleaning sticky juice off your brand new seats!
3: Car Seat Mats
If you’re like most caring parents, you will not be interested in purchasing a car seat mat for safety reasons. However, there are some crash tested approved mats available. Our only recommendation would go to WeatherTech’s version. Not only do these mats provide the best protection available, but they have also been crash tested and approved using the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) for Child Restraint Systems (CRS), FMVSS-213. This is the only mat available that I would consider using in my vehicles.
https://www.weathertech.com/child-car-seat-protector/#
Even after taking every mess-preventing step possible, we’re still going to have to clean our vehicles at some point. Luckily, there are some tips and tricks available to make this process a bit easier. Let’s start with the hardest part, cleaning difficult areas:
Cracks, crevices, and hard to reach areas:
It is likely that there will still be debris left in tight spots in your car even after vacuuming it. Spilled coffee especially loves all the low, hard to reach spots and vacuuming is not going to remove it. These spots are by far the most annoying areas to detail. Not to worry, we have so useful tips to make this much easier.
- Loosen up the debris by letting some interior cleaner soak into it.
- Use an old, soft toothbrush to fully remove the debris.
- For vents, you can wrap a cloth around a popsicle stick or a ruler to deep clean them past the surface.
- Air compressors do a great job and loosening the material with compressed air. If you don’t have an air compressor, you can get cans of compressed air that will also work. These are available at auto parts stores and on Amazon.
Other useful tips and tricks:
We fully understand how time-consuming, tedious, and downright annoying cleaning the car can be. However, the alternatives of permanent damage to your vehicle’s interior or spending hundreds for a professional detail leaves many of us without a choice. Always look forward to the reward of having that new car smell return!
