Every morning you get in your car to go to work and you spend however long it takes to get there juggling coffee, listening to the radio, or yelling at traffic. And every afternoon you get back in your car and do it all again to get home.
You spend a lot of time in your car, and pretty soon what was an exciting symbol of freedom and success becomes a grubby reflection of your busy life, excess fast food wrappers and all. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are a few things you can do that will bring the life, and novelty, back to the inside of your car.
Keep it as clean as possible
It seems almost too simple, but this is where it must start. Five minutes with a damp cloth can work wonders for the inside of your car…but only after you’ve thrown away that layer of discarded fast food wrappers, coffee cups, and soda bottles, which you conscientiously didn’t throw out the window.
But apart from making your car look and smell like a trash heap, that smell is bad for your self-esteem every time you give someone a ride. So do yourself a favor and throw out the trash, suck up the dirt, and wipe up the dust.
Get your car an Air freshener
Now that your car is clean for the first time in months, why not make it smell like it? The original “new car smell’ wore off probably before you even took ownership of the car, but that doesn’t mean you have to settle for the bad odor.
There are many forms of air fresheners, from spray bottles to gadgets that sit in front of your vent and emit a pleasant chemical interpretation of a cool breeze every time your A/C is on.
But if you’re not feeling fussy and just want to quickly block out generations of body odor and old fast food, then just go for the classic cardboard tree, and the overpowering scent of pine guaranteed to add a fresh odor to your car, and every single person who sits in it.
Buy a Steering wheel cover
After a few years of constant gripping, twisting, and sliding through your fingers, your steering wheel is probably pretty well-polished. It also gets unpleasantly hot or cold such that you avoid touching it with bare skin. But all that can be avoided by buying a snazzy steering wheel cover. Not only will it prevent burns and frostbite and dangerous driving, it will give your car interior another dose of new.
You can even coordinate with your floor mats if you want. And for those who are feeling a little bit more adventurous, why not replace the whole steering wheel? You could have something racy and colorful, and make your car look like one of a kind. Just make sure you follow the installation instructions properly, or your car will be one of a kind in the junkyard.
Buys it some Seat covers
Sometimes it probably feels like you spend more time in your car than you do in bed. And that’s gross because at least on your bed you can change your sheets. But despite all the hours you and all the previous owners have spent sitting and sweating (and worse) on that interior.
You can’t just rip it off and throw it in the wash. But you can just buy a new seat cover. There are even ones that will plug into the lighter slot and heat up. There’s nothing like a warm seat when the weather is twenty-below.
And if you just picked up a takeout pizza then you can also use the heated seat to keep it warm on the way home! If you have a particularly stressful commute that needs more than a warm butt, you can get a seat cover that will give you a back massage. But getting home feeling relaxed is the only happy ending it comes with.
