From rain and sun to dust and mud to all sorts of stains and grime, your car gets dirtier every time you take it out for a drive. And it’s rarely the kind of thing you can fix with just a spray of the garden hose. The more you use your car, the grimier it’s going to get. While there’s no shame in driving a car that looks like it’s an absolute beater (well… maybe a little), it does feel a lot better sitting behind the wheel of a vehicle that looks like it’s been showered with proper care and attention.
Sure, you can drive by the car wash and get your car detailed. If you want to keep your car looking its best without having to make frequent trips to the shop, though, a car cleaning kit is likely to be the most cost-effective choice.
Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for car owners to clean and detail their own rides. Many car owners already fork out a premium for their insurance, gas, and regular maintenance, so doing your own cleaning helps take out another potentially costly burden. Car cleaning kits make getting started on the task easy, as it removes most of the guesswork involved with cobbling together the right products and tools. Simply put, most kits will have everything you need to DIY your car cleaning and detailing jobs.
These are the best car cleaning kits to keep your ride looking good all year long.
Well Life Clean Car Care Kit
Looking for an eco-friendly way to keep your car clean? While it’s quite basic compared to other kits in the list, we do like that it gives people a car cleaning option that ditches the harsh chemicals found in many other cleaning products. There are only two cleaning compounds here, a car wash shampoo and an all-purpose cleaner, both of which are plant-based, so it’s very light on the environment. And they do a pretty good job at cleaning both inside and outside the car. Granted, we’d still go with one of the more standard chemical cleaners out there for tough detailing jobs, although this offers a great option for basic cleaning if you want to keep your footprint light. Each kit comes with a large microfiber towel, a pair of gloves, a collapsible bucket, and a bag sized to fit the whole set.
Autodeco 30-Piece Car Wash Cleaning Kit
While it doesn’t come with cleaning chemicals (other than glass washer tablets), this car cleaning kit bundles enough tools and accessories to keep you duly equipped for any car cleaning job you plan to tackle. This is a great pick if you want a wide selection of tools for cleaning both inside and outside the car, while being able to pick and choose cleaning compounds from different brands. There are five different detailing brushes, a tire brush, a wheel brush, four different wax applicators, a microfiber sponge, a wash mitt, a car duster, a mini-duster, and a window scraper, all of which are bound to find a lot of use in your car cleaning tasks, along with a collapsible bucket for moving the tools around the ride. They even threw in a snow shovel, a rain cover, and a tire hook, along with three towels of different sizes. There’s even a toolbox-style storage container sized to fit the entire load.
- 30PCS CAR WASH CLEANING KIT: 1 plastic storage box, 5 car detailing brushes, 1 collapsible bucket, 1...
Aero Cosmetics Complete Car Care Kit
This car cleaning kit contains Wash Wax All, the outfit’s water-free car wash compound, which you simply spray on and wipe dry for easy cleaning. It’s non-toxic, too, so no worries about getting it on your skin (no irritation whatsoever), all while being very effective at cleaning. It leaves the car with a non-stick UV protective coating, too, so it helps protect your paint job after cleaning. The rest of the kit is great, as well, from the tire soap and the aircraft-grade rubber conditioner to the interior cleaner that you can use with carpets, leather, and vinyl surfaces. Along with the cleaning products, you also get a brush, a sponge, and some towels. We do wish there was a window cleaner here, too, but it’s a great set for the price and quality.
Meguiar’s Complete Car Care Kit with Ultimate Compound
Like many car owners, we’re big fans of Meguiar’s products. They earned a solid reputation for good reason and this kit bundles nine bottles of their best chemical cleaners for both car exteriors and interiors, along with clay bars, an applicator pad, a wash mitt, and a towel. There are no brushes in the kit, though, so you’ll need to grab yourself a set of those, too. What cleaners are onboard? There’s a car wash shampoo, of course, for rinsing off all that dirt and grime, along with a liquid wax, a high-gloss tire gel, a quick detailer, an interior detailer, a scratch remover, a clear plastic cleaner, and a micro-abrasive paint restorer that can remove oxidation, water spots, and blemishes of all sorts in a jiffy. We’d have liked a kit from them with a few brushes onboard to really bundle all the basics together, but this one is really pretty good on its own.
- Product 1: COMPLETE CAR KIT: 1 Meguiar's Complete Car Care Kit with 12 premium products to clean,...
Relentless Drive Car Wash Kit
A 20-piece car cleaning kit, this comes with everything you need to make any car look sparkling clean both outside and in. This is great for folks who don’t have any existing tools for cleaning and detailing, as this gets you stocked up and ready with every tool and cleaning product you’re likely to require to get the job done. We love the assortment of tools and accessories here, which include three types of brushes, a large wash mitt, two wax applicators, a mini-duster, a window squeegee, a cleaning gel, two types of towels, and even a 3.5-gallon collapsible bucket for holding your supplies. It comes with six different cleaning chemicals, namely a car wash soap, a ceramic spray wax, a detail spray, a wheel spray, a glass spray, and an interior spray.
- CAR DETAILING KIT INCLUDES: 16oz car wash soap / foam cannon soap, car wash mitt, car wash bucket,...
Chemical Guys 16-Piece Arsenal Builder Car Wash Kit
This car cleaning kit comes with a selection of tools and products for cleaning your car exterior, giving you everything you need to keep everything from the hood and the doors to the tires and windows looking pristine. The tools and accessories feel solid with great quality, while the cleaning chemicals come in generously-sized bottles, so this should have your cleaning needs covered for a bit. Everything works great, from the wheel cleaner and the short handle brush to the cyclone dirt trap and the microfiber towels. Our favorite, though, is easily the foam cannon that lets you cover your car in suds with very little effort, making it legitimately fun to use.
- MAKES A GREAT GIFT - This kit is the ultimate collection of car wash supplies, and is the gift that...
Griot’s Garage Master Car Care Kit
So, you’ve spent a few weekend afternoons detailing your car and enjoyed it, feeling pride at the spiffy-looking shiny car at the end of all the laborious work. Now, you’ve decided to take things to the next level and take your weekend detailing work even further. How do you go about it? Well, this car cleaning kit just might be the next step that you need.
A fully decked-out bundle, this set comes with over a dozen containers of cleaning chemicals, including a shampoo wash, a spray-on wax, a liquid gloss poly wax, a rubber cleaner, a tire and trim coat, a restoration compound, a leather care spray, an interior cleaner, a window cleaner, and more. There are tons of tools, too, including multiple long-handle scrubber brushes, a pair of detailing mitts, a foam scrubber, a hand applicator, different types of towels and cloths, and even a big wash bucket with casters and lid. Seriously, it’s the big kahuna of detailing kits and it’s the one you get when you decide you’re serious about managing your car cleaning needs all by yourself.