Pro Tips For Keeping A Family Vehicle Clean, Even If It Is White

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I’m kind of like Jeff Dunham’s Bubba J puppet on this.

Bubba says, “I’m tired of hearing that most NASCAR fans drink too much.”

Jeff then asks, “Cuz it’s not true?”

“No, it’s true. I’m just tired of hearin’ it,” Bubba says.

I’m tired of people talking about how kids mess up car interiors. Yes, it’s absolutely true. I have 4 kids, and yes, they’ll mess up a car’s interior in ways that will make your skin crawl. I’m just tired of hearing it all the time in Facebook groups, on Twitter, and sometimes in person.

In this post, I’m going to tell you the reasons you should stop worrying and just get the white interior (assuming, of course, that the white interior is your thing).

The #1 Reason: The Seats Hold Up Well

Like Tesla tested the heck out of white seats with kids over 20,000 miles, and they held up just fine. People concerned about the white interior on the interwebs always get the same response from actual owners: they hold up surprisingly well!

If you’re worried about staining, crumbs, and other things, just chill. It’ll be OK.

“If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.”

One of the scripture verses I grew up with as a kid comes to mind. If you’re still worried, just do what the Boy Scouts do: “Be prepared”.

You’ll notice that Like Tesla’s family planned ahead for potential problems. Some things they suggested:

• Keep baby wipes in the car (you’ll need them anyway, right?).
• Keep Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser on hand.
• Carseats can and will wear on your leather and vegan leather seats, so get seat covers designed for carseats if you have kids.

The only thing that might really do harm is if something that can stain sits for weeks or months, but it’s pretty tough to do that with white seats. The messes just stand out too much to be missed. With regular checkups, wipe-downs, vacuuming and inspection, there shouldn’t be any problems.

From my time as an Uber and Lyft driver, I’d recommend a couple more things if you want a hassle-free experience with a white interior:

• Buy a couple of small trash cans that use bag liners and stack them together.
• Put a can of Turtle Wax Interior Cleaner (the kind with a built in brush) in the cans.
• Put one spray can of Ozium air sanitizer in.
• Put in a small spray bottle of glass cleaner and a roll of paper towels.
• Add a few spare shopping bags to use as bag liners.

Put this little cleaning kit in the back and you’ll be ready for almost anything kids or drunken adults might throw at you. Almost. When kids are like “My stomach hurts!”, give them one of the buckets. Use the other supplies to clean up any messes that happen.

Having a cleaning kits in the car makes it that much easier to give the interior a quick cleaning when charging. Also, for carpeting, Scotchgard is your friend. Use it regularly. Or don’t, but don’t say I didn’t tell you so.

$#!7 Happens

“It” happens, sometimes literally. Forrest Gump warned us, and the bumper stickers reminded us.

If applicable to your life, make sure that you’re ready to change diapers by having a good diaper bag. This needs to include something to put under the kid while you change them. As most parents know, sometimes the poop and pee comes out like it was propelled by something SpaceX would build. Elon Musk probably should check into this to make the next gen Raptor, because babies find ways to surprise us all with their rocketry. Elon has kids, maybe that’s his secret.

Anyway, ”it” gets everywhere. If you have a cleaning kit ready, you’ll be ready to clean it up. Even if you get the mess cleaned up, you might still be able to detect that something less than pleasant happened in the cabin, which is why I recommended Ozium.

Having a spare shirt in the bag is also nice. Or keep it in the frunk, which I’ve heard makes a great changing table in a pinch.

Other, less poopy messes will happen, too. The key here is “Don’t Panic!”. And carry a towel. Towels can be useful. Put the towel in the back with the other cleaning supplies or in the frunk.

How many messes will happen with kids per year? A minimum of 42. It’s a fact of mom life (and dad life). Deal with it.

But most of all, don’t panic. When “it” happens, just clean it up and move on.

So, if you like white interiors, buy the white interior. Life is too short to worry about kid messes.