How clean do you keep your car?
 

Washing my car is NOT high on my list of priorities. Actually, cleaning anything isn't very far up there! I tend to pick up my mail and dump all my junk mail in my car for later disposal (hey, at least it's not cluttering up my house that way.) Plus . . . I eat in my car sometimes. About every 3 months I run it through the washing machine or vacuum it out. So . . . not very clean!

But I see loads of people (usually young men) lovingly wiping down their cars on the weekend. Just wondered -- how clean is YOUR vehicle?

Not too clean, but not too disgusting either. Kids and I spend a LOT of time in the car, and yes, we eat in it sometimes. Which reminds me, I left a plate in there yesterday . . . oops.

Drives my husband nuts, because he likes to keep his car spotless. I tell him, hey, just stay out of my car. :) We have three, and I only mess up one.

I am not a neat freak, I repeat ... but my DH is a hoarder and he fills his truck and tries to fill my car and I have let him do that in the past but after putting my foot in a pie... no no no never again. He can drive a rolling dumpster but not me. I want to be able to use the sun visor in my car and see out the windshield and have a back seat I can see and use to haul home my treasures like groceries and stuff....:eyebrow:

I have a demo, so my car stays clean at all times. I have my personal effects in a small tote....car charger, ez pass, gun, bag of weed, etc..... so that if someone wants to use it, I can just take the bag out.

I'll let jinx answer about her car.....if she chooses to.


damn weiner kids.

The car is pretty neat. We don't leave any trash in the car. But if you mean how ofter we use soap and water or other cleaning products on the car and get the vacuum out, then it's about once a year. The floor wells do get some leaf debris in them this time of year when it's raining out and you track them in. If there's a big leaf, I'll pick it up and drop it outside. And there are a lot of crumbs under my son's booster seat.

It's clean enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed to give company a ride somewhere in it.

My car has a lot of sand and leaves in it right now, and a lot of mud on the outside. I keep the front area pretty tidy but the children and disgusting pigdogs.
Every evening when we get home I say "Get all your god damn shit out of the f'ing car" and they act like they're doing it but they don't. They have whole dvd collections and books and magazines and game chips and gum wrappers stuffed everywhere. I can't wait until they get their own cars or start buying me detailing gift certs.

You are not alone.

Inside - about once every two months I collect the crap and throw it away.
Outside - I never clean it.

Not very, but not very dirty either. Would be cleaner except my brother borrows it sometimes and he'd leave trash behind. I only have the outside washed several times a year. :p Hehe...but really, it's not that dirty. (Hmmm....where's that smilie with a halo? :D)

My dogs play King of the Mountain on my car so it always has muddy paw prints on it. It gets run through the detail shop about four times a year. About as often as I get the oil changed.

Car dirt? The Lord giveth and the lord taketh away.

I found some third world kids and a couple pigs rooting around in my car...

lol @ pigdogs

There are leaves on the floor most times and I find vacuums are useless in getting the floorboards.

I try to keep it neat. I try to keep the paint in good shape. It was glossy black when I bought it. Someone had taken really good care of it previously. I was so thankful they didn't try to sell me a mafia boat looking thing I try to baby it as much as I can.

Manfred gets rained on occasionally. Like yesterday, which he got rained on a lot, and then it was windy, so he should have dried off without any nasty water spots or anything like that. Nice thing about rain is that you get to clean the undercarriage, too.

Interior, I do wipe the windshield when I can't see through it anymore. I don't smoke in the car, so I don't have to do it as often as I used to. I ran out of space in the trunk, so there are a couple things in the back seat ... tent, sleeping pad, pillow. Oh, and my friend's tupperware that I have to return. That kind of thing. And some padded-top legal pads for work. I buy my own. The perf-top ones the nuthouse buys don't fit on my personal clipboard. I don't have my own desk, but I have my own clipboard. And my own pens. Their pens are too cheap and write crappy. Last night I'm sure the new ambulance guy took my pen and won't give it back. Yes, I know. I'm like the red Swingline stapler guy, except that I speak more clearly. And there's probably some books Tester-San gave me that I haven't had time to bring into the house, but I think they're in the footwell under the sleeping pad, so I don't see them. Out of sight, out of mind.

My focus is trashed 3 out of 4 weeks thanks to the damn kids. The FJ is generally about as clean as an FJ should be.

I hardly bother washing Eddie, cuz the damned mag chlor and muddy snow just mess him up as soon as he's clean. I joke that I can bring rain by washing my truck.....We do keep the inside pretty clean though.

I live at the end of a gravel road that's at the end of a gravel road. This means my truck never gets washed. I feel guilty because I know it can't be good for the paint, but...

In the summer the roads are dusty, and in the winter they're muddy/slushy/snowy. There's no point in washing the darned thing because one ride down my road(s) and it's all boogered up again - whatever time of year.

As for the inside... I confess, it's a mess. Maybe I'll do something about that today. :rolleyes:

Usually my car is a one-person vehicle due to all the gear and trash in the other seats/feeting area. I do my best to try to keep the passenger-side speaker unblocked.

Few years back, J and I were going on our first dates. For some reason, I had to completely clean my car inside and out. And that night was the first time she got into my car... and it was all clean and neat. She seemed actually crestfallen, like, maybe this guy isn't gonna work out. She said, kinda sadly, "Ohhh.. your car is clean..." I laughed and laughed.

I think that's a lovely story!

It is a wonderful story!

My car is neat, but not clean. I'm in the "never wash the outside" crew, always have been. I've vacuumed the inside maybe three times in 6 years. Trash on the floor bugs me, and I watch the big kids like a hawk as they personally pick up each of their items and carry them back into the house at the end of the ride, because that bugs me even more.

Dirty outside. Inside is . . . well, smudged? I try to get the trash out of it once a week, but haven't vacuumed or washed the windows in a long time. And now there's dog nose-prints on all the windows. And muddy pawprints on the back seats. Pigdog, indeed! :lol:

How clean is your car
 

Responding to UT's story, many years ago a good friend of mine was starting to date a woman that he found very attractive. They reached the point where she invited him to her house, which, when he walked into the living room was very clean and neat. They conversed a bit, although he was already thinking "Oh oh, she's too neat for me". They moved on to the kitchen, which was clean but not at all tidy so that he began to feel a little bit better. Her son, who was in the basement, called for help with some kind of crisis, which meant they had to go downstairs to the basement. It was a mess. Charlie immediately felt happy and comfortable and eventually married her.