Caring For Your Vehicle’s Interior

The cleanliness of your vehicle’s interior is as essential as its exterior. A well-kept interior adds quality to your driving experience and offers the ultimate in comfort and safety. Cleaning the exterior can be as simple as a short trip through the car wash or hand-applying car wash, wax, detailer, and other car exterior cleaning products. The interior of your car or truck is another story because if you wish to keep it clean, you really need to work at it. Here are some tips from Jungerman CARSTAR in St. Peters, Missouri for keeping your vehicle’s interior neat and clean.

Vacuuming

The vacuum is arguably the single best tool for keeping your car’s interior clean and sanitized. It's not only a good way to remove the dirt and debris from beneath your floor mats to the top of your seats, it is a great way to get rid of the filth that has accumulated in all the various nooks and crannies of your car. For the best results, get in there with a high-powered vacuum which has a hose and attachments so you can clean out each crack. A coin operated vacuum cleaner at a car wash is a terrific place to begin. A quick note about vacuum-cleaning car floor mats: take them out from the automobile and shake them out to remove excess dirt before vacuuming.

Fabric Upholstery

While a vacuum cleaner does a fantastic job of removing dirt in the carpeting, floor mats, and seats, sometimes these areas take some extra TLC. After all, filth can frequently get ground into the upholstery causing discoloration that remains even once you run the vacuum cleaner. Remove those imperfections simply by using a carpet and upholstery cleaner. These cleaners are uniquely formulated to deep clean your seats and carpets without soaking them with moisture. You'll want to avoid significant quantities of moisture as this actually promotes mold growth). For rubber floor mats, a good power wash will get the filth, gook, and grossness out of the vehicle.

Leather Upholstery

If your car has leather seats, you should keep them looking their very best because stained, ripped, and/or cracked seats, besides being ugly, might also hurt the resale value of your automobile. A vacuum cleaner can, and should, be used to get rid of the surface dirt on any kind of seat. For a much deeper clean, a special leather cleaner ought to be used on leather seats (followed closely by a leather conditioner to protect them).

Dashboard

While you may not notice it all that frequently because you’re busy looking at the road when you drive around St. Peters, St. Charles, O'Fallon, or Lake St. Louis, Missouri, the dashboard can pick up its fair share of grit and dust. Along with vacuuming, using a microfiber dust cloth on the dashboard is a fantastic way to get it looking good again. Once it’s been cleaned, utilizing a protectant on the dashboard can help you to avoid fading, cracking, and peeling. These protectants also help with maintaining the color of your interior against the sun and its ultra violet rays. The steering wheel counts as a part of the dashboard so you ought to put some protectant thereon as well. If you've passed the point of no return as it pertains to fading, cracking, and peeling dash, seats, or steering wheel, it might be the right thing to acquire a dash cover, steering wheel cover, or seat cover.

Windows

The windows of your automobile are maybe the most crucial part of your interior to keep clean. After all, clean windows make for better visibility. Eliminating all the smudges, fingerprints, and even paw prints – for those who have a pet who frequently rides along with you – will help you see much better while making your car or truck simply look really good. Certain glass cleaners even provide a water repellent formula that beads and wisps away water, enabling better visibility. Just make sure you utilize something that won’t leave behind streaks. Newspaper comes in handy in this case. It's important to know that certain glass cleaners don't work well with tinted windows and can also harm the heating elements that de-frost and de-fog your windshield. Household glass cleaners have ammonia, which with time will break down the heating unit on your auto glass making your windshield defrosters worthless.

Trunk

You may be thinking, the trunk? What does it matter if the trunk is messy? Nobody sits in there. From an absolutely aesthetic point of view, having a dirty trunk isn’t a problem. However, did you know that having a messy trunk will affect your vehicle’s fuel economy? Keeping items in there when you are driving all around St. Peters, Missouri can add weight to your car, which causes the engine to work harder when you drive, hence burning more fuel. If you don’t absolutely have to haul something around in your trunk on a given day, it ought to be empty. Your wallet will thank you. Obviously we know that there are situations where trunk storage is necessary. When this takes place, Jungerman CARSTAR suggests keeping your vehicle’s trunk organized, granting you quick access to the items you'll need.

Organize

Now that you’re squeaky clean, make sure your automobile is orderly. Organizing your automobile keeps out the clutter, making interior upkeep a lot easier. Car organization items are designed with function in mind and are best for those of us who bring items with us on the road. If you store items in your trunk, a trunk organizer may be the best option for you. Stuff like visor organizers, dash caddies, and seat organizers keep the mess at bay while permitting you to easily and quickly vacuum up debris.

If you've any other questions on car maintenance, auto body repair, or driving safety, come to Jungerman CARSTAR in St. Peters, Missouri and we’d be happy to help get you back on track.