Top DIY Car Hacks

It cost's money to own a car. Between paint jobs, cleaningsandoil changes,having a car can cost as much as having kids. Discover some DIY easy fixes that will help you save some money maintaining your car without sacrificing your stylish ride.

Change Your Own Oil

One of the biggest ways you can get ripped off when it comes to your car is by having your mechanic change your oil and rotate your tires. Mechanics can charge upwards of $80 to change your oil and close to $100 to include tire rotation. Luckily, it’s pretty simple to perform both of these tasks on your own. Once you’ve figured out the best way to change your oil, you can save yourself hundreds of dollars each year by doing it yourself.

Don’t Forget Where You Parked

One of the most frustrating things to happen while out on the road is forgetting where you parked your car. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a parking garage or parked on the street; many consumers buy similar styles of cars these days, so it’s harder than it was ten years agoto find your car. If you’re in the parking garage, you can easily take a photo of your parking spot to remember where you’ve parked. Make sure to take a photo of your car with an identifying landmark. If you rely on other cars to find your car, you might get a surprise when you find all the other cars have moved. Also, make sure you take a photo of the parking level sign that’s closest to your car. It’s easier to look at a photo than it is to remember the level and your location where your car is parked.

Deep Clean Your Car Yourself

There’s one thing you can count on when it comes to your car: the fact that it will never stay clean. Instead of taking your car in for detailing, clean it yourself with a few fool-proof methods. Mix dish soap, peroxide and baking soda together. Spread the paste on stains in your car, and rub the paste into the fabric. Leave the paste on the stains for up to one hour. Rinse the paste off the upholstery.

Clean Your Car Windows Yourself

Use a razor blade to get the stuck-on gunk off of your windows. Remove streaks with a mixture of distilled vinegar and water. Mix dish soap and baking soda together to make a wash for the outside of your car. Use essential oils to make your car’s interior smell like a spring meadow, cozy café or a beach on a warm and sunny day.

Use Nail Polish for Paint Touch Ups

Don’t spend your life savings to fix scratches on your car. Your friends and family won’t know the difference between these cool hacks and an expensive paint job. One of the easiest ways to hide scratches on your car is with nail polish. You can buy polish in any shade of the rainbow, and you can even find shades that match your car. Find the shade that’s closest to your car’s color. Apply the nail polish to the scratch and let dry. Your car should be scratch free by the time the polish dries. Sometimes car owners don’t want the hassle of finding the right shade of polish for their car. Luckily there’s another route to follow if you fall into this category. Candle wax is another great way to hide scratches and seal the paint. Melt the wax of a cream candle, and spread the hot wax on the paint scratches with a plastic spoon. Allow the wax to cool and wipe off with a soft towel.

Organize Your Trunk with Caboodles

Caboodles were a great way to organize your makeup in the 1990s. Nowadays they’re a great way to organize your car. You can keep all the small items that you normally shove into the glove compartment or in the cup holders organized in a Caboodles case. You can use larger plastic tubs to organize larger items. Engine oil, antifreeze and windshield wiper fluid fit perfectly in these bins. You’ll never need to crawl around to find out if these bottles have rolled underneath the car seats again. Use magazine holders to organize your kids’ coloring books and any paper maps you have cluttering up your backseats.

Make An In Case Of Emergency Kit

Everyone should have at least one emergency kit in their car. Sometimes it’s not a bad idea to have different emergency kits for different emergencies. A first aid kit is the most important emergency kit that you can make with simple household items. You can place all the items in a small tote or even just a plastic bag. Your first aid kit should contain bandages, tissues, antiseptic, motion sickness medication, pain relievers and disinfecting wipes. You should also keep a spare phone charger in your first aid kit just in case your phone dies when you need it to call 911. You can make your own emergency kits for different emergencies. Keep a tote with shoe glue, a sewing kit, stain remover pen and nail polish for wardrobe malfunction emergencies.

Make A Phone Dock With A Hair Elastic

You don’t need to buy a fancy phone dock if you want to use Google Maps in your car. You can make a phone dock with a simple hair elastic in a pinch. You could even use a rubber band if you don’t have a hair elastic, but your car won’t look as fancy. Simply thread the hair elastic through the air vent nearest to the driver’s seat. Slip your phone through the two loops to secure it to the air vent and dashboard. From here, you can easily see your phone and have access to your maps and music. This also works well in a pinch if your phone dock happens to break while you’re out on the road.

Muffin Cups For Loose Change

Everybody throws loose change and small items into coffee cup holders. The rough part of this scenario is when it’s time to use your cup holders for actual coffee again. You need to dig through the cup holders to extract the loose items. By this time, your loose change has inevitably gotten covered with sticky soda or crumbs. Don’t let this happen to you. Instead, place muffin tin liners in the bottom of your cup holders. The silicon muffin pan liners work best for this hack. You won’t need to dig through your cup holders when it’s time to take out your loose cup holder items. Simply remove the silicon muffin pan liners to extract your items. You can even throw these liners in the dishwasher when they get sticky.

Make A DIY Coffee Cup Holder

Sometimes your cup holders are better used for holding change than coffee. Yet what do you do when you need to press pause on drinking your tasty beverage? Make a new cup holder! All you need is a heavy roll of masking tape. Place the tape on the passenger-side seat. Place your coffee in the masking tape ring. The heavy masking tape roll will ensure that your coffee doesn’t go flying into the dashboard. Don’t worry about the masking tape roll going anywhere either. You can always tape a piece of cardboard to the bottom of the role. Use Velcro to affix the DIY cup holder to the passenger-side seat.

Keep Kleenex Off Of The Floor

Everybody hates digging around for a tissue when they need to blow their nose or wipe up a spill. Sadly, tissues never seem to stay on the seat or where you’ve left them. Make sure you never lose your tissues again. Use one of your previous DIY tools to ensure your tissues stay put. Take two elastic bands or hair elastics, and wrap them around either side of your sun visor. Take a package of tissue, and thread it through the elastics. This works best with smaller packages of tissues or soft packages of baby wipes. It gets a little tricky to put up your visor if you have a box of tissues attached to the visor.