My car is usually pretty dirty, TBH. I do have a two-car garage, just barely, but one half of it is devoted to way too many bicycles and my repair area for them, plus storage for whatever doesn’t have a place to go in the house. Oh, how I long for the days when I had a basement …
Anyway, my wife’s 2024 Lexus NX 250 gets the garage spot as the newer, nicer car, and also because it’s her car, which is more important than newer and nicer – but in this case, it’s all three. So my 2015 RAV4 – her previous car – lives outside, and is thus usually dirty. But here’s the thing: it’s silver, so it has to get really filthy before I notice enough to care. And even then, a quick window-wash while I fill the tank does a pretty good job of restoring the illusion of cleanliness.
I do have a breaking point, of course. It’s usually about the wheels though, not the car. When the tires are looking brown and the front wheels are dark with brake dust, that’s when I bust out the suds. Sometimes it’s a DIY job in the driveway, other times I do the exterior-wash-only at my local car wash joint.
As for the inside of my car, I can stand littering in there for a day or two, as in stuffing a Snickers wrapper into the door pocket or not fretting over a straw sleeve that flutters to the floor, but I can’t deal with actual filth. A sticky cup holder must be dealt with immediately. Crumbs in the emergency brake boot gotta go. I’m also a bit dust crazy, I can’t stand it when the top of the dash and the no man’s land between the steering wheel and dash look less than freshly wiped.
How about you: How dirty is your car, whether it’s usually, or right now?
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
My cars are generally always clean, inside and out. They will be cleaner in a couple months when they ALL have nice garages to live in. The cars in Florida do get shit on constantly (literally). But they also get run through the car wash regularly. I am not precious about that AT ALL. I keep the insides clean, which is easy because I don’t have a bunch of little crotch gobblins destroying them.
Not dirty at all. 1. it’s silver which hides dirt well, 2. I use hybrid ceramic (marketing mumbo jumbo whatever) wax.. I really only wash it with soap a few times a year. about every other week I go to a self service bay and spray it off with the “spot free” rinse.
I keep mine fairly clean on the outside. I usually hit the local touchless place about once a month (more often if birds have been particularly… productive). Every 6 months or so, I’ll hit the DIY bay and give the engine a quick spray with the pre-soak and then a rinse (never high pressure, natch). After a drive to thoroughly dry the engine, I let it cool off then dress the various plastic covers and wire loom with Stoner Trim Shine (carefully avoiding the belts!). Inside, I don’t mind dust, but I can’t stand clutter or anything sticky. Every now and then, I’ll grab a Swiffer and dust all the plastic, vinyl, and leather surfaces. I’ll bring the floor mats inside and give them a good scrub in the bathtub and vacuum the interior while they dry. It’s actually pretty bad in there at the moment, so I may have a weekend project lined up now.
On it’s 3rd “birthday” I took it to the local detail place and splurged on a full detail. It was nice seeing it shined up inside and out, but I’ll probably wait until it turns 5 or 6 to do it again. Doing that any more often just doesn’t seem like a good use of funds on a daily driver.
Not at all.
I’d say average on the dirty scale on the outside. It’s 2001 Toyota Tacoma, the clearcoat is going fast. I don’t wash it as often as I once did. I use it for work and hauling my mountain bike to the trails, so it’s filled with tools, hardware and cycling gear. Usually the passenger seat is occupied with a tool bag, or box filled with hardware or tools. But it’s organized. I know where everything is.
Can’t stand dirty cars and have always enjoyed cleaning cars – one of those therapeutic chores – so none of my cars get that dirty. Now, with kids, the definition of “that dirty” is flexible, and to a degree I’ve had to learn to live with things like fingerprints on windows and shoe prints on the back of seats. But compared to most vehicles I see out there, mine are kept pretty clean.
I have a dark blue truck and have no driveway or even access to an outside hose, and I don’t trust drive through washes, so in a word, filthy. However, I DO have a cordless vac and a selection of microfiber mitts, detail brushes, and cleaners, so the interior is usually nearly spotless.
I fell in love with the blue, it’s a bit of a shapeshifter color, but it might as well be black. After two silver vehicles in a row, I didn’t want another, but man I miss it. Unless it was muddy, the silver generally looked clean, at least from a distance. It was only after a good wash that I’d realize how dirty it actually was, “oh yeah, this is metallic silver”. My next one will likely be silver, white, or some other lighter color.
In the past I got around the hose thing by buying a 5-gallon garden sprayer, I’d use a clean bucket of water from the sink for the suds, and rinse with the sprayer. I did that once with the truck, it’s just too damn big for that to be efficient. I had to fill the sprayer two additional times, as well as the bucket, and it took forever.
Filthy.
My truck doesn’t get to go in the garage (stereotype I know). But that’s because I turned my side of the garage into a woodshop as I finish our basement. So I do wash it periodically, but it’s a losing battle.
My wife’s CX-90 is abnormally dirty because of driving both ways on a mile of gravel to get to my parent’s house for the 4th and then spending the last week parked on a gravel road at the lake house. Need to find a night this week to wash it.
The vehicle interior’s are kept spotless, as hard as my children work to counter that.
Very clean – I hate a dirty car. I have even been known to wash a rental car (ick). My cars live outside. My wife’s is red and sits under a tree that birds like to sit in. She washes it a lot. Mine is black. I wash it about once a week – more often in the winter.
As a side note, my son has a wash subscription to the local – in bad weather, he will wash his car every day. I have literally never seen it dirty.
We’re still in a drought situation, so that means that the handwash-only half of my household’s fleet is a little grubby. The ZJ was parked outside during a rainstorm that appears to have rinsed away the pollen, but the wheels are looking filthy enough that I’ve purchased a special cleaner. All of them need to be vacuumed, but it’s been way too hot for that lately. The two that have air fresheners also need to have the inward-facing glass cleaned.
It’s monsoon season, we’ve had multiple dust storms recently, and I park outside. It’s filthy and I see no point in washing it for another month or so.
Pacific, or Arizona? We had a corker in Mesa last night..
Yes, Arizona. North PHX. That WAS a wild storm last night. The last 4 times I’ve driven anywhere I’ve had to run the washer/wipers.
I live on a dirt road in the desert. How dirty is my car? Not as dirty as it’ll be tomorrow.
I used to have a boss that lived on a dirt road. He bought a car that matched the dust color (gold). Its all about blending in.
My teenaged self would be shocked/embarrassed at our less than spotless cars!
These days, it more important use my time driving the Miata than washing it.
This past year we did sign up for car wash subscriptions for our newer dailies…have a gravel parking lot at work, so I make sure I get my $$ worth.
Remember back in High School, if you did a full fill up at BP, got a free car wash token…granted, it certainly wasn’t the ‘touchless’ kind!
So I bought a cheapie electric pressure washer and foam cannon a while back, having a reason to play with it means the BMW and Stinger get washed fairly regularly even though they wind up dusty from being parked in the driveway after a day or two anyway. Wife and I at least keep the insides clean.
I’ll occasionally also juggle cars to do a quick exterior blast on the street-parked Colorado and 2500, but the interiors are usually so full of tools and random building materials it’s rare to give them any attention.
My daughter’s GX470 makes me angry to the point I have to warn her a couple of days before I drive it – other than the occasional threat to take it away if she doesn’t clean up I don’t think the floorboards have been visible through the food and candy wrappers and fast food cups for more than 2 days since I bought it.
My car is moderately dirty. I vaccumed it out recently but it could use a thorough cleaning
All of my cars are disgusting right now. Between kids and the new apartment complex they’re putting up about 200 feet from us, everything is covered in dust and dirt.
The cleanest one is the Mach-E but only because a bird crapped the entire length of the car at some point yesterday and I ran it through a car wash on the way home. The Focus is probably due for another quick wash. The wife’s car looks like she’s been overlanding in it.
I garage my car most of the time. When I visit my mother’s farmhouse, it sits outside and the ambient dust adheres to the morning dew, and my car gets absolutely filthy. If it rains on the way back north most of the dirt gets rinsed off at freeway speeds. But not all of it. The remaining dirt contrasts noticeably with the car’s metallic gray paint.
It’s not really dirty until you can grow potatoes on it…
I drive a BMW, so the rear bumper is covered in oil. We’re under water restrictions in my county. I’ll get fined if I wash it.
Oh, the interior of our minivan is a disaster. We went on vacation last week, and had to leave it home due to my wife driving through some water during Canada Day flooding, which caused a need for a new neutral position switch. Naturally this was unavailable until after our trip was well underway.
After fixing the van this Sunday, I went to put my daughter’s booster back in and I saw mouse poop. Eek!
I vacuumed it all up (yes I was careful) and booked an interior cleaning for Friday. I hate to spend the money give that we’re likely looking at new vans on Saturday, but chances are we’ll have to keep driving this one for a while regardless.
I usually run my FR-S through the car wash once a week. If I get my Bug running, I’ll wash it too. Right now it’s kinda sad, though.
Hah, with two very young kids washing the cars has very much taken a back seat over the last year or so. I’ve actually resorted to using those contact-free car washes just to keep the things looking half-decent. I finally got around to washing our Territory today as it was so dusty the last contact-free wash basically did nothing. I got to the final rinse stage when my 10-month-old began stirring from her nap (30 minutes early, of course), so I had to rush the rinse and give the car a quick wipe with the towel while my wife fed the little one. That’ll have to do for now. No wax today.
Not sure when I’ll be able to get to the Crown, probably just before I list it for sale in a couple of months.
I’m embarrassed to admit, but I bought a Civic hybrid hatch in April ’25 and it’s never had a full exterior wash. I don’t want to take it thru a brushed carwash, and I live in a condo in an urban area with no yard and hose. It’s garaged day and night, and when I’m out in the hinterlands travelling I usually find a pressure-wash bay and spray it down. That said, it doesn’t have a problem with brake dust, and the boost blue (“smurf”) does a fair job of hiding grime. I have a battery powered vac and the inside is kept very clean, plus I don’t eat in my car or allow it.
My wife’s 2019 Yukon XL Denali (black, of course) is kept very clean. I have a wash membership for it. I don’t obsess over it, but I like it to look decent. My 2016 Civic LX is way past due for a wash; I try to wash it at least a couple times a month.
I keep my car clean. However, we are on drought restrictions for water so I have to take my car to the local swirl mark car wash. However, a quick once over every few months with Griot’s Speed Shine and synthetic clay bar followed by a coating of MaxlOne, and my black paint looks almost new.