What do you put in your car's dash and console storage?

February 28, 2023 10:38 AM

Bonus points if you drive a Prius Gen 2.

I emptied out my Prius console this week, and it seemed like I was using the space badly in part because it's sort of an awkward space; deep and narrow, a little bit bigger or smaller than everything. So it was just full of detritus: napkins, D&D dice (I don't even play D&D), the paper liner notes from some old cumbia compilations, Del Taco hot sauce, a Christmas ornament from the 2019 Bob Baker Marionette fundraiser here in Los Angeles. A mess.

My two (!) glove compartments are no better: a Lucha Villa CD compilation, "Eponymous" by REM, a racquetball (I don't even play racquetball), an old headlamp bulb (?), old car service receipts, and then the car manual and the requisite insurance and registration docs.

I am not happy with what I'm doing with these spaces. Are you happy with what you're doing with yours? If so . . . what is it?

posted by kensington314 to Grab Bag (18 answers total)

Oh my god, I love this question because I do drive a Prius Gen 2 and it's ... full of crap. We've had it since 2010 and here's what I'm doing with it:

Wendy's receipts
Dried out dashboard wipes
Spiral aux cord that doesn't work
Expired antihistamines

This sounds like a job for Tiktok or insta. PruisTok is probably a thing.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:50 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Glove box is easier, btw: every piece of paper documentation, the entire manual, $20 for emergencies/emergency coffee, tire pressure gauge.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:52 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

In my glovebox there is the car handbook, an ice scraper, and when I lived somewhere sketchier I kept my phone mount and charging cables in there. Nothing else fits. I am not entirely sure what console storage is - very small car so just might not have it - but I keep sunscreen and sometimes flip flops in the door pockets. Sometimes a bottle of water.
posted by corvine at 11:02 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Glove box: hand cranked flashlight, owners manual, multi-tip screwdriver, tire pressure gauge and plastic straws because I hate paper ones.

Center console: EZ pass, GPS, some hard candy (lemon drops) registration and insurance cards, charging cables, tissues and wipes.

Stuck in with the spare: heavy gloves, safety vest, lug nut key for the wheel locks.

In the summer I have a bag with a few bottles of water, sunscreen and some nonperishable snacks, in the winter a bag with a blanket, snacks, heavy gloves and a good hat.
posted by Marky at 11:02 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

• Car manual & registration
• Napkins & moist towelettes, some plastic silverware, plus a spork
• A couple of KN-95 masks in new wrappers.
• A Noco jump pack (new this week!)
• Mints, CDs
• Sewing kit
• Tire pressure gauge & OBD-II reader

(I also have a flip-top box in the trunk with tools, gloves, rope, towel, toilet paper, Dad-sized sweatshirt, pencil & paper, picnic blanket, flashlight, light rope, lightstick, etc., etc.)
posted by wenestvedt at 11:06 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

In my Honda Fit -

Top glove box is me-stuff: napkins, plastic flatware, spare mask, granola bar, hand sanitizer

Lower glove box is car stuff: tire gauge, manual, registration, insurance, pencil and notebook from when I used to track gas mileage that carefully, key for lock nuts on wheels. I used to have a pouch with some cash and rarely-used ID cards (e.g., blood donor), but I left my door open and that got stolen and I haven't missed it.

Console: CD player mount for phone, 12V phone charger

Door pockets: Sunglasses, mini ice scraper, reusable shopping bags, 1L bottle of water for emergency

Rest of car: 12V tire inflator, chains incl. gloves to wear for installation
posted by momus_window at 11:24 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

2007 Prius (is that Gen 2?). Glove box - locking wheel nut kit, CDs (yes, it's that old a car), mini instruction manual. Central console - ten tons of crap I keep meaning to clean out, e.g. receipts, two pairs of those anti-glare glasses that you wear over your own glasses (I don't wear glasses anymore), almost empty and now dried out packs of gum, used masks (all mine), a phone charger (there's no USB port on my Prius, so I have a USB adapter that plugs into the cigarette lighter which is ... also in the centre console).

In the space in the boot (trunk) next to the spare tyre I keep my tyre pressure guage, window cleaner, de-icer spray, a roll of paper towels, a small collapsable snow shovel, a pair of track things you can put under the tyres if you get stuck in mud to help you get out, a raincoat, a hi-viz vest, a reflecting triangle.

I keep jump leads on the floor behind the driver's seat. I back my car into a garage, and so if the battery dies in there, I'd have no easy way of getting to the jump leads if they were in the boot.

A timely reminder to clean out the car this weekend.
posted by essexjan at 11:25 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Not a Prius owner but this is what I have in my glove box and centre console.

Glove box:
Car manual
Car registration and insurance slip
Adapter for the wheel nuts
Pressure gauge
Way too many coupons and random papers
Extra masks

Centre console:
Hand sanitizer
USB cable
One dollar coin for shopping carts

In the front door pockets I also keep a mini air compressor and in the back with the spare tire I've got a battery booster and high volume inflator for air mattresses and the like.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:39 AM on February 28, 2023

My car is like a giant purse, with basically everything I could ever need.

In the parts of my car I can reach while stopped at a red light, I keep stuff for me that I often need quickly while driving or parking:

Console cubby: Nail clippers, lip balm, tissues.

Glove box 1: Napkins, straws, cutlery, salt. Pad of paper, pen, sharpie (for writing notes on my dashboard like "on delivery" or "daily contractor for Company" when I have to park somewhere terrible - notes which I'm sure have saved me thousands of dollars in parking tickets), roll of tape, scissors.

Glove box 2: First aid kit, naloxone kit in case I encounter someone OD'ing (I would put it somewhere deeper in the car but the glovebox seems pretty well insulated to prevent it from freezing), car insurance papers.

Driver's door pocket: Microfibre dish cloth for wiping foggy or wet mirror and windshield, hand lotion, baby wipes, hand sanitizer spray.

Passenger door pocket: Umbrella, small ice scraper, small bottle of windex (my mirrors get very dirty).

In the parts of the car that I need to be parked to access, I keep things I need less urgently:

Back seat: Storage caddy with kiddo stuff (spare clothes, diapers, mittens, sun hats, small fast food toys still wrapped to use as a distraction when I take the kids somewhere boring), and some just-in-case stuff for me: a pack of thank you cards, spare makeup kit, a couple tampons, a few kinds of granola bars, spare charger, and I have a case of water bottles in the kids' footwell.

I hide about $50 cash in my car - saved me this summer when I forgot my wallet and ran out of gas an hour from home!

Trunk: Mini plastic tire ramps for when I get stuck in snow and mud, jumper cables and jump battery, spare blanket, picnic blanket, re-useable shopping bags, and a couple of laundry baskets for keeping things organized. One of the laundry baskets always has a few errands lined up in it - purchases to return or clutter to donate or gifts to drop off at friends' houses, so if I drive past whatever place, I might be able to fit in an errand.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:44 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I always have a stack of voter registration forms in envelopes. I routinely strike up conversations with people who help me in commercial situations, and I've developed a pretty good sense of who is and who is not progressive or progressive-leaning.

Anyone curious about my methods is welcome to me-mail me at any time.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 11:45 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I had the same car and it helped a little bit to divide up the center console- you might be able to find old boxes that fit, or you can cut down and resize cardboard boxes yourself, or even buy organizers designed specifically to fit in your console. I had a paper lunch sack for trash in there, and other boxes to hold other things like tissues, with a little tray on top to hold shallow things. Or, if you happen to carry a purse, it might be good to empty out the console and put the purse in there when you're driving. A friend got robbed the other day while she was in the car and parked by the side of the road- the purse was on the seat next to her and the thief broke the window and grabbed the bag. Again, while she was in the car.
posted by pinochiette at 11:55 AM on February 28, 2023

My center console (2015 prius v) has a little tray so we do have some organizational help.

Hand sanitizer
Coin purse
Napkins
Small CD sleeve with choice music selections
3 Raffi CDs each in their own jewel case left over from when we used to do car naps

The glove box has registration and a microfiber cloth for dusting the dashboard, the other glove box has the owner's manual.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 12:33 PM on February 28, 2023

Not a prius owner, just a general car user:

Glovebox scissors get way more use than you might think, they are a must-have in all my vehicles.

Spare napkins from fast food places.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:53 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

2009 Prius owner here (last year of gen 2!). No way this inventory is complete.

The center console is a pit of despair. I know for sure our emergency jump starter is there, at least one pair of gloves, and several years worth of change rattle around on the tray. There are also a few pieces of change in the cup holders, which means cups and cans never sit quite straight.

In the upper glove compartment are my wife's over-the-glasses sunglasses, two tins of Altoids, and an inches-thick pile of spare fast food napkins.

In the lower glove compartment are maps so old I'm sure plate tectonics have obsoleted them, 14 years of vehicle registrations, and several years of proof-of-insurance, tire and other maintenance receipts. Oh, and the vehicle manual as well, though it may take an excavator to unearth it.

You forgot to ask about the little compartment beneath the backup camera display, which has a couple of pens, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and some lens wipes which have probably dried out.

The driver's side door pocket holds trash, since the trash bag got thrown out with ... well, the trash. The passenger side door pocket is empty. The CD changer has five CDs, which haven't been played since before the pandemic; there are others in the CD case beneath the passenger seat, which means they haven't been played since before the before the pandemic. A rotating assortment of masks hang from the gear selector. I actually have a pair of sunglasses in the sunglasses pocket above the rearview mirror.

I don't want to know what may be in the seat-back pockets. No one sits in the back seat anymore, so anything in there is either ancient or crawled in on its own. The seats themselves are occupied by a box of paper towels, a box of fresh masks, and reusable grocery bags that only get taken into the store about half the time and are only returned to the back seat about a quarter of the time (and then usually migrate to the floor). The back seat cup holders probably have at least one empty soda can that was transferred from the front cup holders to make room for fresh stuff.

I'm not sure what all is in the rear compartment anymore, except I know there's not as much room for groceries as there was a few months ago.
posted by lhauser at 1:55 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Lots of good advice here. Just going to add two things that work for me though I drive a different car (Honda CR-V):

1. I bought a zippered-pocket thing that slides over the visor. That contains registration and insurance information, also I slide the handicapped parking hanger between it and the visor when we are underway (we don't have distractive things hanging from our mirror)

2. To make room in the glove box the owner's manual is stored under the driver's seat, slide in from behind. Repair receipts are stored in a pocket in the manual's plastic cover. This may not work if you are in a snowing climate where snow from boots might melt and make the carpet wet which may then wet the pages of the manual

Side note: I'd like to give a shout-out to the 2009 (and possibly before and shortly after?) Toyota Yaris designers who moved the speedometer and fuel gauge display to the center of the dash, allowing a second glove box, for the driver. We once had the Yaris as our second car, and that was one of the best features of the dash. More manufacturers should do it. It took a week or so to get used to the placement of the speedometer, but after that I preferred it. It isn't there on recent models, so maybe I was in the minority.
posted by TimHare at 8:58 PM on February 28, 2023

All these lists make me really feel normal for the mess that is my car. My top glove box and console items that aren't noted elsewhere -- Pepto Bismol, PMS meds, and eyedrops. Also, scissors and a big role of packing tape. I once handmade an entire rear window with those two when mine was broken on a Sunday just as I was embarking on a road trip. Last: dog treats and dog poop bags. If there's not a pig ear in my glove box, my life has gone off track a bit.
posted by luzdeluna at 9:10 PM on February 28, 2023

For what it's worth, a pump bottle of hand sanitizer fits right into a standard size cup holder -- perfect for the useless one at the bottom edge of the driver's side door.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:18 AM on March 1, 2023

A pair of regular, normal office/utility scissors -- I've lost count of how many times those have come in handy.

Then, a ballpoint pen, tire pressure gauge, insurance card and the mostly useless "manual" cars come with nowadays. And the dongle thing you need for the bolts. Overall, not much.
posted by gimonca at 7:39 AM on March 1, 2023