What should I look for when buying a vacuum cleaner for the car?

If you’re of a certain age, your judgment on this subject is probably coloured by a particular generation of car vacuum cleaners. You might remember them: chubby little plastic barrels in pastel colours, powered by a single nine-volt battery with a rubber band (visible once you’d lost patience and hurled the thing against a wall) driving the innards. And, without sugar-coating it, they were useless.

But surely, car vacuum cleaners in 2022 can’t be so uniformly worthless? True, but some still are, so finding the right one involves checking that it has the features and grunt you need.

First things first; does the unit have the sucking power you need to remove jelly-babies from carpet? The single biggest gripe among car vacuum-cleaner owners is a lack of suction

Another thing to consider is the size and weight of the unit. While it’s tempting to use the household vacuum cleaner with the wand removed, you have to be sure the thing will be able to poke down between the seats and centre-console and under the front seats (where whole micro-eco-systems can survive for years). Weight is another issue and a vacuum cleaner designed for use while standing might be a bit ungainly as you’re sprawled across the back seat trying to vacuum up five-year-old Maccas fries.

The actual vacuum produced by a cleaner will be loosely linked to the power of its electric motor. These range anywhere from 200 Watts to 650 Watts and, the rule of thumb is that more is better.

The other big feature people look for is cordless operation. Not having to drag a cord through the car’s interior is a huge bonus and modern rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are good enough to give you the vacuuming time you need between recharges. Even household vacuum cleaners are going this way with handheld, 12-volt or 18-volt operation.

Make sure the bag capacity is big enough for your needs, too. It can be a pain having to empty the bag too frequently, so check the capacity of the bag in the specifications. An alternative is the bagless, or cyclonic, type of vacuum cleaner that is increasingly popular. Makes and models such as the Dyson V6 are powerful bagless cleaners and are a popular choice.

The cleaner’s filtering system should also be investigated as it’s no use simply moving the dust around the car. Again, the specifications will tell you a lot, but a comparison from an independent source is always worth consulting. A cleaner with a good filtering system will also filter out even tiny dust and prevent it form entering the cleaner’s motor, potentially damaging it.

What attachments does the cleaner come with? Often, cleaning a car’s interior requires some pretty specialised little mini nozzles and brushes to get into every nook and cranny, so make sure they either come with the unit or can be purchased as accessories.

Finally, can you live with the noise of the thing without resorting to earplugs. Don’t forget, a car’s interior is an enclosed space, so what sounds tolerable in the shop may be painfully loud inside the car in a garage.

To be perfectly honest, when it comes down to it, many car owners find that their portable household vacuum cleaner is more than up to the job of vacuuming their car. And since many household cleaners are now cordless, you don’t even need to park the car anywhere near a power-point. It’s worth noting that professional car detailers don’t use car-specific vacuum cleaner. For them, the best vacuum cleaner for car work is an industrial-grade wet-and-dry barrel models (with the appropriate attachments) purely for the extra grunt they offer and the ability to clean more cars more quickly.

If, however, you’ve decided that a car-specific unit is right for you, what’s the best car vacuum cleaner on the market? These things change all the time, so the best advice is to find an up to date comparison or collection of independent reviews on the subject. Don’t forget that this is a hot marketplace, too, so there are lots of brands competing for your money including established household vacuum brands like Hoover, while traditional hardware brands such as Black and Decker have also bought into the market.