During the summer months when the sun is at it’s brightest, your car’s interior can take a beating. When the UV index is high, your dashboard is more likely to dull, and your seats are more likely to degrade.

The same way you’d protect your skin with a layer of sun cream, there are steps you can take to keep your car interior looking healthy.

In this blog, we’ve rounded up our top tips and products to keep your car interior feeling cool and looking comfortable.

Sunshades

Sunshades are super quick and easy to pop in and out of your front windscreen to protect your dash, making them a worthwhile investment if you’re road-tripping this summer in your car or campervan.

By keeping a Halfords Essential Large Silver Sunshade handy in your boot, you’ll be protecting your seats from fading as well as keeping other essential components including your steering wheel and gear stick feeling cool to the touch.

Window Tinting

If you’re looking for a more permanent solution, tinting your windows is a great idea. Once you’ve invested in tinting your windscreen, your car interior won’t need as much maintenance.

We recommend the Simply Window Tint Light Smoke Film to reduce heat glare. With simple fitting instructions, this film is easy to install at home and also provides an extra layer of car security.

Before tinting your windows, you should familiarise yourself with the law on vehicle tinting to ensure your vehicle’s windows are compliant with the legal limit.

Seat Covers

If your car has plush leather seats, repeated exposure to the sun can lead to loss of moisture, weakening the leather’s structure and leading to fading, cracking, and stiffness over time. This doesn’t just change the aesthetics of your seats, causing the leather to lose its vibrancy, it can also compromise the integrity of your seat in high-contact areas such as the seat edges, armrests, and headrests, causing the leather to peel and expose the underlying material.

We recommend using the Halfords Seat Cover Hastings to protect all of your car seats from the sun, leaving your seats looking good and feeling comfortable.

Park in the shade

Maybe you’re heading out to enjoy a sunny day at the beach or a relaxing afternoon at the park, chances are, protecting your car’s interior isn’t top of your to-do list!

Before you head off to enjoy the blue skies, spare a thought for your car by planning ahead and finding places to park that aren’t in direct sunlight.

By parking your car under trees or in a covered car park, you’ll be ensuring your vehicle spends the hottest part of the day, when the UV is highest, under cover, reducing the risk of overexposure.

Car covers

If you don’t have a car port or garage to park your car in while you’re at home, then a quality car cover is a great investment to keep the harmful UV rays from both your cars interior and exterior, at bay.

A car cover such as the Halfords All Seasons Car Cover can be used to protect your vehicle from all weather conditions – but it’s particularly handy in the summer months, when your car spends a lot of time parked outside your house or workplace.

UV protection spray

While you’re cleaning your car interior, a great way to incorporate UV protection is by using a cleaning spray that contains UV blockers such as the Armor All Interior Detailer.

By using a UV protection spray, you can target all areas of your car interior, such as mirrors, leather, and plastic surfaces, protecting them evenly and all at once. It’s super easy to apply with a microfibre cloth and will dry quickly in warm weather, so it’s a great idea to keep this in your car to use on the go. If you have leather seats, use a reliable conditioner, such as the Halfords Leather Conditioner, to keep your seats moisturised and less likely to split.

By keeping your car interior in tip-top condition, it’ll make cleaning your vehicle easier, offer you a more comfortable drive, and will likely increase the value of your vehicle if you come to sell it.

For all your car interior cleaning and maintenance products, shop in-store or online at Halfords.com.

Halfords Motoring Club

By joining the Halfords Motoring Club today, you’ll get access to a range of amazing benefits and discounts that are designed to keep you moving, keep you safe, and keep you saving.

It’s free to join, and you’ll receive money off your MOT, a free car health check, and a welcome voucher that can be spent on any Halfords product or service, including motoring range.

Or choose our Premium membership for a small monthly fee of £4.99 (£59.88 total) or £49 annually to unlock exclusive member pricing on all motoring products and services online and across our stores, garages, and Halfords Mobile Experts, as well as a variety of other benefits that will help you to keep moving for less.