Simple Tips to Organize and Clean your Car

If you’re tired of driving around in a messy vehicle, it’s time to organize your car and take back control of your space.

From crumpled receipts to stray toys and empty water bottles, clutter can pile up fast.

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But with a few simple tips, you can create a clean, organized car that makes every ride more enjoyable—whether you’re commuting to work or running errands around town.

Use these simple tips to organize and clean your car!

What does the inside of your car look like?

Is it spotless, or is the dashboard covered in dust?

If I called right now and needed a ride, would you be embarrassed to pick me up??

If so, don’t worry—I’ve got some simple tips to help you organize your car and get it looking (and feeling) fresh again.

Seems to me there are three types of people when it comes to car care:

Lovers – Those infatuated with their car, keeping it perfectly clean and clutter-free at all times.
Owners – Most of us fall into this category. We use our car to get from point A to point B and clean it out occasionally.
Hoarders – The people who treat their car like a storage unit on wheels and don’t clean it out until someone stages an intervention!

Table of Contents

USE THE 6/P STRATEGY to organize and clean your car

Ready to tackle the mess?

Use my 6/P Strategy to help you clean and organize your car step by step.

This simple system will take your vehicle from chaotic to clean in no time!

PREP

Gather a trash bag, two laundry hampers, a vacuum, and cleaning products appropriate for the inside and outside of your car.

PURGE

Remove all the items from the interior of your car (including floor mats) and your trunk. Place each item in one of the following categories:

Trash: Throw away all of the garbage, including receipts, stray papers, and empty coffee cups, in the trash bag.
Relocate-Place any items that don’t belong in the vehicle in laundry hamper # 1
Replace-Place any items that need to stay in the vehicle in laundry hamper #2

POLISH

Now that the clutter is gone, it’s time to clean.

Clean the outside of the car and then wipe down surfaces, vacuum the floors and seats, and don’t forget those cup holders!

A clean car feels instantly more organized.

PERSONALIZE

It’s time to decide how you will organize the storage spaces in your car.

Think about your personal needs.

What do you need in your car?

A trash can, first aid kit, place for coins, sunglasses, etc.

PLACE

Now it’s time to place everything back in your vehicle!

Decide what items actually need to live in your car.

Then assign each one a designated spot.

This is key if you want to organize your car in a way that stays manageable long-term.

Trash-discard in your garbage can
Relocate-take laundry hamper #1 and deliver items where they actually belong
Replace the items from laundry hamper #2, back in your vehicle, in the spot you found for it.

PUT BACK

Here’s the hard part—keeping it that way!

Make a habit of taking out trash and items you don’t need every time you get home.

A few extra seconds can save you from a total mess later.

How I cleaned my car

Okay, friends, I must confess I don’t do a very good job of keeping my car clean.

I keep it fairly organized, but clean is a different story.

It’s just not a priority for me, as you will see in the pictures below!!

However, I have some great tips for how to organize and clean your car.

Exterior

Rich took the car to the car wash!

When he got home, I decided to remove several old window decals from the back window!

This is hard because these stickers have a lot of sentimental value.

They represent the boy’s high school marching band and the two colleges the boys went to!

Unfortunately, the Florida sun did a number on our window decals!

They are peeling off, so it’s time for them to go.

Someone spraying Goo Gone on a peeling window decal attached to a car window. Showing a tip to clean and organize your car.

I sprayed Goo Gone on the decals and let it set for two minutes.

A hand holding a razor that is scrapping a window decal off of a car window. A tip for how to organize and clean your car.

Next, I scraped the decal off with a razor blade.

Then I cleaned all the exterior windows.

No more peeling decals!

It looks so much better!

I also cleaned the windshield wipers and mirrors!

The exterior is done, so let’s move on to the interior!

Interior

Oh my, I’m a bit embarrassed to share the interior pictures of the car, but here we go!

Here is the before picture of my floor mats!

Can you tell we had recently been to the beach?

A man using a power washer to clean a car floormat in his front yard. A tip for how to organize and clean your car.

Rich used the power washer to clean the floor mats!

I vacuumed the ceiling, seats, and floors

The dashboard was so dusty, I could write on it!

I know, I’m ashamed of myself!

Maybe this humiliation will keep me from ever letting it get this out of control again!!

Needless to say, I cleaned all of the hard surfaces!

A bottle of Armor All cleaning wipes and a can of Armor All carpet and upholstery cleaner for cars, sitting on a wood table. Tips for products to use when you organize and clean your car.

We used Armor All wipes on all of the hard surfaces and their upholstery cleaner on the seats. Both did an amazing job.

The seats had lots of stains that needed to be removed.

The upholstery looks so much better now!

This was the hardest part of cleaning the car, trying to get all of the dirt out of these tiny cracks!

The cap of an ink pen sitting on top of a car cleaning wipe that was used to clean small indentations in the car. An example of tips to clean and organize your car.

I used the tip of a pen cap, and it worked perfectly!

It was not hard, just time-consuming!

The last step was to clean the interior windows and mirrors.

It feels so great to have a clean car!!

I can’t believe we procrastinated so long to do this project!

Now let’s talk about how we organized the car!

How I organize my car

glove compartment

The glove compartment is usually the most disorganized space of the car.

Seems like most people just put stuff in there and then forget about it!

Below is the “before” picture of our glove compartment.

We keep the car manual and insurance info in a plastic bag, but somehow it was dumped out!

An organized glove compartment that has car manual and papers in a bag. Camper equipment in a bag and first aid kit in a plastic travel soap dish. Tips to organize and clean your car.

I put the items in a new zip lock bag and grabbed a second bag to put the camper items that Rich stores in this area.

Rich keeps a flashlight on a head strap in case he needs to change a tire at night or we have to set up our camper in the dark!

I have a small first aid kit in the plastic soap holder.

Console between seats

Another great place to organize items for your car is the console between the two front seats. Below is the picture of our console before it was cleaned and organized!