How to Protect Your Car’s Interior
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How to Protect Your Car’s Interior
Try to add up the hours you spend in your car.
It’s a lot, isn’t it? Commutes, errand runs and road trips can have you sitting
in those bucket seats for hours on end, and during that time, you and your
passengers are actually living in the interior. That means smudges on the
windows, scratches on the dash and food in the seat crevices accumulate and
leave you wondering what happened to the spotless interior you swear it had
when you first bought the car.
A Quick Clean
Luckily, it’s not that difficult to keep a
car’s cabin from looking a little too, well, lived in. First things first, get
something to stuff your trash into. Just use a plastic bag or a container you
don’t use around the house and throw it in the backseat. You can even affix a
temporary hook to the door or seat to keep things even neater. Every once and
awhile, take it out and relish in the fact that you haven’t spent an hour
cleaning up. Keeping trash off the floor also preserves your carpets, which can
get stained from any number of items.
The idea of taking a
rag to your dash and leather seats is made easier if you have them on-hand. The
key here is to just use a little bit of soapy water to wipe the surfaces of
your car – some cleaning products contain alcohols that prematurely dry and age
the materials by reducing the flexibility in the vinyl. Store a small spray
bottle of your homemade cleaning fluid and a rag under your seat or in a
storage bin for access when you’re waiting for your kids to get out of school
or sitting in that crazy-long drive-through line. This will also come in handy
when an emergency spill happens. Lastly, keep your car smelling like roses (or
at least a laundromat) by adding dryer sheets under the seats.
Weather Resistant
You can’t discount the impact weather has on your vehicle either. Dusty feet can quickly make a mess of an interior, and dare we mention the destruction caused by mud after rain? If you spend a lot of time ducking in and out of the elements, you might want to grab some all-weather floor mats. They’re easy to clean and do a great job of keeping the muck in one place.
You can’t discount the impact weather has on your vehicle either. Dusty feet can quickly make a mess of an interior, and dare we mention the destruction caused by mud after rain? If you spend a lot of time ducking in and out of the elements, you might want to grab some all-weather floor mats. They’re easy to clean and do a great job of keeping the muck in one place.
The sun’s rays can
also wreak havoc on your car’s surfaces, causing vinyl to crack over time and
materials to fade. A simple solution is to regularly put a sunshade on the
windshield. They’re inexpensive and help to keep your interior looking new.
Saving money on repair
work and cleaning comes more easily when you take the time to make preventative
care a priority. Not only will these tricks make your car a nicer place to be,
keeping grime out of your ride will cut down on large maintenance costs in the
future and will help to retain its value over time.
