How to clean car cup holders

Car cup holders will naturally get dirty.  They do a great job at holding cups but they also do a great job at holding random debris that falls inside of it.  Over time, car cup holders can get pretty gross and it is a good move to clean them.

You’ll want to start by taking out what you can from the cup holders with your hand.  Use a small vacuum to pick off loose dirt.  Once all of the big pieces are out, you can start to spray a cleaning solution and use a rag to wipe it clean.

Vacuum

All-purpose cleaner

Wash cloth

Spray bottle

Q-Tip

If you don’t have a vacuum, that’s fine.  You can try picking out the dirt with your hands before you start wiping clean.  Just try to get as much dirt off as you can before spraying the all-purpose cleaner.

You will want to start off by vacuuming the cup holder.  Your car’s cup holders will collect a lot of dust and debris, so you will want to use the vacuum to remove as much of that as possible.

Chances are, you have an all-purpose cleaner at home under your sink.  Start by pouring some into a spray bottle and mix with some water.  Once you have your cleaning solution in your spray bottle, go ahead and spray it on the cup holder.

Once you have sprayed down your cup holder with cleaning solution, it is time to wipe it down with a cleaning cloth.  This will get off a lot of the dirt that the cleaning solution helped break down.

Once you have wiped the cup holder clean for the first time, give it another spray with the cleaning solution.  You will want to come back and clean everything that was missed the first time.  If the cup holder is clean enough after the first spray-down, you can skip these steps.

After spraying the cup holder again, pull out your q-tip and get into the small crevices that you missed with the cleaning cloth.  Dirt loves to hide in these small corners.

Cleaning your car’s cup holders is the type of cleaning that is really rewardful.  You no longer have to look at the dirty cup holder and it is now easier to get cups in and out.  Since they’re so small it is really quick to clean and I recommend it if you have dirty cup holders!

Oftentimes, cup holders get sticky because drinks spill and they have sugar in them which gets very sticky.  Apply rubbing alcohol to the sticky surface.  Hopefully it will break down the sticky substance and make it easy to remove from the cupholder.

If you’re having trouble removing dirt with the cloth and vacuum, you can try using a toothbrush.  The manual force will loosen the dirt and separate it from the cup holder.  Do not use a metal brush as that might scratch your cup holder.

If you don’t have an all-purpose cleaner, you can make your own by mixing dishwashing soap and water.  Just mix them in a cup or spray bottle and there you have your homemade cleaning solution.

Shop Vacs would be great for their project.  They have strong sucking power but also use the hose which makes it easy to reach the cupholders in your car.