Poll: how often do you clean out your car?

[Niel]

I cleaned my car out today as Im getting ready for Christmas, then I have to put a carseat base in ....

The thought popped in my head, so I wanted to start a poll

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Mine really needs to be cleaned out...this is on my to-do list for this week while I have some time off.

(I guess I clean it out every six months or so...I kind of live in my car b/c of commuting about 1.75 hours a day so who knows what I'll find during this cleaning)

 

[Niel]

Mine really needs to be cleaned out...this is on my to-do list for this week while I have some time off.

(I guess I clean it out every six months or so...I kind of live in my car b/c of commuting about 1.75 hours a day so who knows what I'll find during this cleaning)

Yeah mine was getting rough. I want to blame my two year old, but I think she only made about half the mess.

 

[monarch64]

I clean it out every week, usually after the weekend because that's when it seems to get the messiest from all the running around/errands.
I am kind of anal about having a clean car, inside and out. I don't go nuts with it, but I do make sure my floors and seats are vacuumed (I use a shop vac we keep in the garage) week to week. If I didn't do that now, everything would be covered in goldfish crumbs and all that other toddler-created debris.

 

[packrat]

My Escape, when I first got it, we kept it really clean. London was 6 months old. When she got older...I got lax. And then Trapper came. And JD's not the...yeaaah he's totally not the cleanest guy. His truck, the couple times we've had "date night" or been able to go someplace together w/out the kids and I'd ask him to clean his truck for me...he pretty much tosses all the shit in the back so I have a place to sit.

Buuuut I just got a brand spankin new car yesterday and I'm over the moon about it--so we had a huge discussion w/the kids about how we're going to treat this vehicle. So this one, I'm going to say weekly. I want it to stay pretty like it is.

 

[Calliecake]

Not as often as I should! It really isn't that bad. I clean it out every month.

Congrats on the car Packrat!

 

[Niel]

My Escape, when I first got it, we kept it really clean. London was 6 months old. When she got older...I got lax. And then Trapper came. And JD's not the...yeaaah he's totally not the cleanest guy. His truck, the couple times we've had "date night" or been able to go someplace together w/out the kids and I'd ask him to clean his truck for me...he pretty much tosses all the shit in the back so I have a place to sit.

Buuuut I just got a brand spankin new car yesterday and I'm over the moon about it--so we had a huge discussion w/the kids about how we're going to treat this vehicle. So this one, I'm going to say weekly. I want it to stay pretty like it is.

Haha I do the same when I get a new car. I had this death trap of a car that I HATED and I took such little care of it because of that.

I bought a new car last year and I totally took such good care of it. M was maybe 1.5 years old, and didn't make much of a mess.

Now the car and the kid are a year older and its much harder to keep clean, and harder to care about!

Congrats on the car!!

 

[VRBeauty]

I see I'm part of the majority - but I have to admit the interval I specified might be somewhat optimistic.

Ask me again when I get a new car!

 

[ame]

I usually keep them pretty clean. DHs car on the other hand is absolutely foul. Don't get me started.

 

[Skippy123]

I do every other month. My friend owns a car wash so I take it in to give her business and that helps get rid of kid crumbs. Kids are messy!

 

[MichelleCarmen]

My son offered to clean my car. Yay!

 

[CRYSTAL24K]

I clean it out everyday. I remove all snack remnants, crumbs, extra jackets/clothing, empty bottles, toys, whatever I can before I go into the house. Toddlers are messy. Every Sunday I wipe the surfaces and focus on any areas that need a little extra love on the interior. I take it to the car wash once or twice a month unless it is love-bug season. During love-bug season, I take it every week.

Hubby does a deep clean every few months.

My car was a hot mess up until 6 months ago. I got tired of feeling embarrassed when people wanted to help me bring the twins to the car. I just made a conscious decision to keep it clean and that was it.

Every 1 - 1 1/2 years I get the interior detailed.

This decision was easy for me to make and maintain. I am actually quite proud of myself for keeping this car cleaning regime up for so long.

 

[Trekkie]

Me personally? Hardly ever.

DH goes through it every now and again and removes receipts and other crap.

We take it in for a professional wash once a month or every second month when we do our grocery shopping.

We don't have kids yet and I generally remove drinks containers and chip packets when I get out the car, so it somehow manages to stay quite clean.

We gave my brother his first car about six months ago. I know he's always washing the thing, but I had no idea how serious he was until I had to drive it into the city to have a new alarm system fitted last Friday. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door - not only was it super clean and vacuumed, it actually smelled fresh! He'd done this before going away on holiday - cleaned it thoroughly and parked it in the garage for his return. Whaaaat?! I wish he'd done the same for his bedroom!

 

[Gypsy]

Define CLEAN.

I clean it out of trash when it needs it. But if you are talking washing or detailing the interior... like maybe 2 times a year. It's BADLY overdue right now.

 

[TooPatient]

Quarterly?

I mean, I do clean the trash out more often. Any food/drink stuff is kept cleared out daily. Random tissues (in the designated spot!), paper clips, coins, pens, etc can sit around for a week or two or four.

Emptying everything I've been carrying around happens quarterly unless we need to haul something big inside (rare).

Vacuum gets done at oil changes (if they can get to the floor...) or by us a couple of times a year.
I had been taking it through a car wash every couple of weeks but now it is raining so I don't bother.


Right now in our car:

40 pounds of sweet potatoes
1 pound of dried oregano
big pile of plastic silverware (scattered all over the floor thanks to a dumb pedestrian )
paper plates
napkins
3 pairs of garden gloves
engine hoist stuff
trenching tool
truss project
case of bottled water
2 gallons of spring water
rubber food service gloves
plus the stuff that is supposed to be there

what is supposed to be in our car:
nail clippers
tweezers
mini-sewing kit
air-compressor (little one for tire repair)
jumper cables
flash light
ice scraper
protein bars
2 bottles of water
phone charger
umbrella
emergency 1st aid kit

 

[Jennifer W]

Never, to be honest. I'm bored by stuff like that so it never makes it to the top of the list of stuff to do with my spare time. To accommodate the fact I'm too idle to clean it out, I just try to keep the mess down in the first place. I don't have food, snacks, drinks or anything that creates trash, crumbs or stickiness in the car. If you bring something into the car, you take it out at the end of the ride. Even if you're a small child. I don't do picking up after other people. I can barely do picking up after myself.

It does get valeted with it goes for a service or any repairs, so I guess the dust and general grime is taken out two or three times a year. Other than that, nope.

 

[jaysonsmom]

My current car and my last car were my babies. I make the kids take out all their trash and wipe down scuff marks with leather wipes regularly. When I sold my 10 year old Lexus RX330 this past April, I got top dollar for it, and no one could believe it was 10 years old, and gone through 2 kids. I plan to keep my current Q7 the same....as a matter of fact, the service manager was surprised that I had 2 preteen kids when I took the car in for service last week, he said, your car is immaculate! My office and house Is a different story though!

 

[zoebartlett]

I try to take things inside when I get home every day so cleaning out my car doesn't take too long usually. Occasionally random things pile up and then I just stick everything in a cloth shopping bag and weed through it over a weekend.

My husband, on the other hand, never cleans out his car. He always has random things in it that he never knows what to do with, so he just leaves them there.

Washing, vacuuming, and detailing our cars aren't done too often. My husband never does it because he'd have to clean out his car first. Guess what he's getting for Christmas?

 

[armywife13]

We usually clean little things, like visible crumbs or miscellaneous trash, daily by hand. Then we get our cars detailed once a month, or two months depending on how dirty it has become. If we were living in the US with a garage where we could plug our shop vacuum in, I would just clean it myself once a week and get the vehicle detailed 1-2 times per year. That is what we did prior to moving here and will resume doing when we move back. Unfortunately here in Korea we live in a villa with a shared parking area and no where to store or plug in our shop vacuum.

 

[chrono]

Just general trash? We always remove them as soon as we leave the car and the children know that my car is not a storage space. Other than that, the car is washed and vacuumed when it looks dirty. I've not done any detailing since I purchased the car.

 

[missy]

We remove trash on a regular basis (every weekend or so as that is mainly when we use the car) but we don't detail it often at all. We don't eat in the car but we do drink (non alcoholic beverages that is!) and we keep the car fairly clean. We only wash the car a couple of times each season I believe but if my dh had it his way it would be way more often. It's acceptably clean in any case.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I said every few months, but that is when my husband does it! Never would be the correct answer for me, personally! But we don't have little kids anymore, so the car doesn't get as dirty as it used to!

 

[ame]

Apparently the lady in my thread does it in traffic

 

[telephone89]

I haven't ever cleaned out my current car haha...I got it in March, and it is a POS. So, I guess I don't really care that much about it. My old car (stolen and trashed), I never really let it get dirty/messy, so there wasn't much to clean out.

 

[TooPatient]

Had to take it to be checked out. Not knowing how long they would keep it, I took everything out. Probably should vacuum now that it is empty!

 

[madelise]

Throw away trash every few days, quick drive-through wash + extra few bucks for vaccuum about once a month or two, full carwash about every 4-6 months, detailing only when I need to....


which I've been lagging on since I spilled maple syrup on my passenger seat two weeks ago -_-. No one sits in my passenger seat, so it's on the back burner. haha. oops.

 

[TooPatient]

Throw away trash every few days, quick drive-through wash + extra few bucks for vaccuum about once a month or two, full carwash about every 4-6 months, detailing only when I need to....


which I've been lagging on since I spilled maple syrup on my passenger seat two weeks ago -_-. No one sits in my passenger seat, so it's on the back burner. haha. oops.

Maple syrup?!?

I got melted butter & marshmallows all over the back of our car last year on the way to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving... Yeah... sticky sugar stuff is the worst

 

[Cluless]

It's kept clean daily, the interior gets done twice a year

 

[Gypsy]

Okay so going with these responses I am going to go with "Not nearly enough, apparently."

 

[Niel]

Okay so going with these responses I am going to go with "Not nearly enough, apparently."

Right! Detailing?? Ive never gotten any car detailed.