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How to keep a spotless car when you have kids

Cars and kids. They don’t mix. Raisins in the upholstery, crumbs in the cup holders and sweet wrappers under the rugs. You name it – the car is generally full of it. We were therefore chuffed to be provided with a cordless Dyson Total Clean V6 to test out, so we could see how well it tackled our raisin infested Honda. We wanted to find the solution to kiddy car mess troubles not just for ourselves, but for others too.

Our Dyson Total Clean won't be getting a tougher job than our Honda car!

What is the Dyson Total Clean?

This is a new cordless vacuum cleaner from Dyson which we previewed at an event a few weeks ago. It has a great collection of attachments including the Dyson Fluffy, a new one that picks up both big and small mess. Perfect for the car and under the breakfast table . Designed very much with small people in mind methinks…

Dyson Fluffy, instead of using single bristles and a complete fluffy brush which pulls up large debris, and collects small particles too:

The Dyson Fluffy with the Total Clean is designed to pick up both large and small debris - including Cheerios!

The Dyson Total Clean can be used both as a small handheld, as well as coming with an extension so you can still stand and clean up that mess if you need too.

The attachments include those that work on fabrics, wooden flooring, carpet, upholstery and that cylindrical one you always get for the edges. Something for everyone really!

There is a small see through collection compartment just below the handle of the Dyson Total Clean. This releases when you press a little button nearby.

To power the vacuum, you need to press and hold a button on the handle. This is really easy to operate and doesn’t require too much pressure. The kids, for example, were able to push it down and hold it without too much difficulty.

Our family life means that we tend to get lots of mud, muck and pretty much everything in the car, so using the handheld in here seemed a great way to test the vacuum

The Dyson can be ued as a handheld - the perfectly way to clean the car :-D

The Dyson Total Clean V6 is available from Currys for £429.99 with all attachments.

What did we think of the Dyson Total Clean?

We wrote recently about how this vacuum even got my daughter cleaning

My daughter even likes cleaning with the Dyson Total Clean

Even more amazingly though, it got ME cleaning the car. Car cleaning with kids is a faff. Taking the vacuum outside, having plugged it in using a hall socket can cause far too many problems. From kids tripping over the flex, to cats thinking its a mouse, and even some older “children” who should know better using it as a skipping rope! *coughs*

There really wasn’t a better way for me to put the Dyson through its paces than use it to attack our car.

I found it light, easy to use, and perfect for getting those hard to reach places. I had made sure that the Total Clean was fully charged, and it showed no sign of losing its charge completely, and it took me around 45mins total time to finish beautifying the Honda.

The carpet attachment in particular sucked up all that kid related rubbish that ends up on the floor and seats in a car. It even managed to make my sons seat look clean after a trip to football practice!

I was a little worried that the dust compartment would be hard to open. Wrong. It is a doddle. Even my daughter was able to help out; which means she’s got no excuses for not cleaning up the mess after breakfast

The car wasn’t quite as good as new but from this..

I don't normally take pictures of my dirty car, obviously. But this is what it looked like before we used the Dyson Total Clean on it. Not great right, so wait for the after picture then....

..to this…

THAT is an improvement on my car after using the Dyson Total Clean isn't it? It isn't perfect because we still need to wipe down the upholstery, but ignoring that - great job, right?

That’s definitely more than you can hope for with a family car and only 45mins before you have to head off to a friends daughters third birthday! We need to attack it again with a bit of a cloth to wipe those ever-present footprints and hand-prints off, but muddy football prints aside, it was looking an awful lot better.

Overall – 9/10

We loved this product, and our tip for keeping a spotless car – buy one! Joking aside, the key idea is to have a handheld vacuum, and that means that whatever mess you make on your latest trip out with the kids, as soon as you get home – you clean it up.

We have put the Dyson Total Clean as a handheld in the cupboard under the stairs, so that when we get home from our day trips out; there is the Dyson Total Clean to help us out. Keep it charged and ready, and you will be surprised at home much easier it is to keep the car spick and span.

Shove it away, without giving it due care and attention and the car, and probably the house, won’t be looking quite so lovely when you take that next trip.

If you are lucky enough to have another great brand of car (Honda), just like we do, then it, and you, are worth just that little bit extra, wouldn’t you agree? It is rather cool seeing such great technology side by side in the front seat to be honest. Particularly as it means you can take a breather from cleaning…

Taking a breather while cleaning the car – two of the best engineering brands ever stopping for a cuppa @dyson @honda

A photo posted by Helen Neale ~ Kids / Travel (@kiddycharts) on

 
But, don’t make the mistake that this is just for cars, it most definitely isn’t. This was just a great way of showing you what it was capable of, we are more than pleased with it for managing to clean our wooden flooring, carpets in the kids bedrooms, and anything else that we need to tackle fast.
However, the Dyson Total Clean is making it a lot easier to tidy up after them all, to make sure we can keep going to places like this in comfort. ;-)

Beautiful Thames #london

A photo posted by Helen Neale ~ Kids / Travel (@kiddycharts) on

 
We were send the Dyson Total Clean for the purpose of this review/test, but all opinions are our own.

Cleaning the car when you have kids isn't a great thing to have to do. Our top tip is to get a handheld, and as you can see you could do a lot worse than the Dyson Total Clean. Check out the article for more thoughts.

Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine!Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time.KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10.It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania.Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on.Get in touch TODAY!

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London Mum

Monday 25th of April 2016

Great sharing… Really, am getting frustrated after travelling with my children. they are very mischievous and they want big space in the car and they create mess everywhere in the car.

John hunt

Thursday 3rd of March 2016

Hey.. Great sharing... Really, am getting frustrated after travelling with my children. they are very mischievous and they want big space in the car and they create mess everywhere in the car.

Thanks for this post..Its really seems to be helpful for me..I will be looking forward to buy this product.

mishal khan

Tuesday 9th of February 2016

its too amazing tool of cleaning the car. its really amazing. thanks for shearing us great information.

Paul

Wednesday 3rd of February 2016

Cars and kids. Definitely they don't mix well at all. It's frustrating to see the car all in its messy glory! But hey, that's just the way it is. I have one more addition to that still. Car, kids and pets. It's a total disaster! But love them all :)

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