10 Tricks To Get Your Car Cleaner Than Ever Before

Are you tired of finding old Starbucks cups or granola bar wrappers between your car seats? (I know I am!) Or tired of making excuses why you cannot give someone a ride, because you’d hate for them to see your messy car?

Here are 10 cleaning hacks for your car, because we could probably all benefit from these simple tips and tricks, and stop finding not-so-fun, sticky surprises between our car seats.

1. Use Cupcake Liners In Your Cup Holders

I love love LOVE this idea. Just add some cupcake liners to your cup holders, and when they start to get cluttered, remove and replace them! The Kids Activities Blog recommends silicone ones, which makes sense, though I opted for some fun flowery ones inside the silicone ones. The color and design combo possibilities are endless!

Kids Activities Blog

2. A Remote Control Caddy-Turned-Organizer For The Interior

If you’re tired of finding pens and pencils on your floor mats instead of in one place, you may want to try this hack. Just get a remote control caddy and affix it to the side of one of your seats. Add pencils, business cards, mini-notebooks, you name it. A realtor friend of mine did this and her (car) life’s way more together than it’s ever been before, she says.

Ikea Hackers

3. A Paint Brush For Your Air Vents

The Family Handyman came up with such an easy way to clean our car vents … with a little paintbrush! Dusting has never been so fun! And when you’re all done, you can get ready to clean the seats (see #4).

The Family Handyman

4. Washing Soda For Your Car Seats

Yep, no need to buy fancy cleaning solutions for your car seats when you can make your own with a few simple ingredients: Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, dish soap, and hot water. You can get all the how-to details here from POPSUGAR.

Adobe

 5. A Screwdriver For The Little Crevices

Once again, The Family Handyman came to our car-cleaning rescue by sharing his tip on cleaning small crevices in our cars. All you’ll need is a flathead screwdriver and a cloth to cover it with.

You can then spray a cleaner on it, or a natural cleaning agent — if you read our pieces on all the amazing things vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and lemon juice can do—and clean all your car’s hard-to-reach spots.

screwdriver photo
Flickr | chefranden

6. A Cargo Shelf For Your Trunk

The Kids Activities Blog also recommends adding a cargo shelf to your trunk to save space and help organize your car or SUV. Whether you have kids or not, your trunk could probably be a bit more organized, right? (Mine sure can!)

Amazon

7. “Scour Off” For Your Hubcaps

A few weeks ago, it rained and I thought my hubcaps would get clean. Parts of them were, but the majority of each one still had oil and road residue. Ick. You can use Scour Off to clean your tire rims and, in a few minutes, they’ll look as good as new.

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Ring Around the Rosies

8. Club Soda For Your Windshield

Simplemost is all about time-saving tips and tricks, and when I wrote about all the wondrous things club soda can do, from making pancakes fluffier to restoring your hair after you go for a swim, I learned that it’s great for your car, too … on the windshield, that is. So just because you’re cleaning the inside of your car, don’t forget to do the windows, too.

Shot of a young woman cleaning her car
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9. Dryer Sheets For The Front Of Your Car

There’s almost nothing worse than those pesky bugs that seem to decorate the front of your car, right? The Sugar Spice and Spilled Milk blog figured out the solution: Dryer sheets. She wet the car, then put the dryer sheet in a bucket of warm water before using it to remove the bugs. So easy!

Sugar Spice and Spilled Milk

10. Dryer Sheets As Air Fresheners

When all is said and cleaned, there’s nothing like a nice air freshener to top it all off. As we mentioned here, dryer sheets make the ideal air freshener, and you can even hide them under your seats to keep them out of sight. So don’t use them all on the bugs above — save some for the interior of your car, too!

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Feature photo by Jennlang

Time-Saving, Tips & Advice
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About the Author
Natalia Lusinski
In addition to Simplemost, Natalia is an ongoing writer for Bustle (sex, dating, relationships, and money), HelloGiggles (pop culture and news), The Delite (feel-good stories), and Don’t Waste Your Money (yep, money issues!). You can also find her writing in the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune's RedEye, xoJane, Elite Daily, Scary Mommy, Elephant Journal, and Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies, among other publications. She has a Ph.D. in couch-surfing, having spent four years sleeping on over 200 L.A.-area love seats and sectionals, all in an effort to whittle down her student loan debt. She still loves couch-surfing in other cities, too (hint, hint).

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