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Comfort Zone

Stuff to make your ride cozy and comfy

Despite the number of hours we spend behind the wheel, whether commuting drearily to work everyday, enjoying scenic road trips or just bopping around town running errands, our vehicles can become an ugly combination of a pigsty and torture chamber. Let's face it, we've all arrived at our destination with hips that won't flex and bums that have lost all feeling; we've all wondered where that important piece of paper went only to find it hiding among fast food wrappers and nameless grunge under the seats.

Interior Motives

This is not an indictment of our fitness level, personal hygiene or neatness skills. Vehicles move and so do all the piles of valuables sitting on the passenger seat. Since you're strapped into the driving position (or at least should be), you risk disaster if it's time to stretch. Even when the vehicle is cruising on autopilot, you can't exactly get up and walk about to un-kink your muscles and tidy up. But there are remedies that can help make your driving experience as castle-like as your home.

Let's start with our aching backs and numb rears. No matter how throne-like car or trucks seats are, they have a tendency to get harder and harder as the odometer racks up miles. The problem is not in the seat design, it's in the fact every driver's body is different and car seats can't be adjusted to support every subtle nuance of our skeleton. Even if that seat was once blissfully comfortable, over the miles it may have taken on one's signature imprint and can no longer support the driver's body at the correct angle.

Seat Cushions

The answer lies in the range of seat cushions available at auto parts stores or over the Internet. Like those space age looking, ergonomically engineered desks, car seat cushions are designed to do the same thing—keep us comfortable and ache-free while we're stuck in one position for long stretches.

One example is a polyurethane foam cushion with a cutout that allows the tailbone to be suspended, relieving spinal pressure. If all our bodies were the same configuration, there would be one perfect cushion. Since we're all put together differently, the best way to identify your perfect cushion is to figure out what needs support or suspension. Find the cushion that appears to do what you need, then try it out.

Under Cover

Summer heat and shorts or thin, cotton pants on a vinyl seat are a really bad combination, surpassed only by winter cold and upholstery that has gone rigid and frigid overnight. The obvious solution is temperature-controlled seats that are standard equipment on a lot of new vehicles. There are aftermarket seat heaters, coolers and massagers available, but if that seems like overkill, try a set of sheepskin seat covers. They don't give a massage, but they are temperature resistant and keep you as comfortable as they once kept the sheep. This is one case where the gap between real vs. the faux sheepskin is enormous. Faux sheepskin does nothing but look woolly.

Hold Everything

The next step toward a serene and tidy vehicle is a quick assessment of real problem areas. Do you always have a pile of transient stuff on the passenger seat that takes on a mobile life of its own when your corner or brake hard? There are mesh nets that can be attached to the seat and secure the pile.

Is your go cup or water bottle too big to fit in the vehicle cup holder? Check out accessory trays designed to fit in your car's center console. When looking for a console tray, see if it can handle all your other toys, like an iPod, cell phone or music CDs.

How about those inevitable spills (despite using the abovementioned cup holder)? You'll need an easily reached way to mop up the mess, right? Forget storing napkin overages from those fast-food bags or the tissue box in your glove compartment. We all know how hard it is to keep eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel while we're trying to reach for a wipe. One answer is a visor caddy, a shelf that attaches to the headliner, above the visor. Just the right size for wipes, maps or sunglasses, the contents are held in place with a flexible net and all within each reach.

Mat Finish

Could you grow seedlings in the rich soil embedded into your carpets? The best way to get rid of the gravel, dirt and mud that accumulate on the vehicle's floor is to install mats that can be easily removed and shaken out. A little whiskbroom is good as well, but then you'd have to find a place to put it. Mats that are not contoured to your specific vehicle are, sometimes, worse than nothing at all. They have a way of squirming around under our feet, spilling pounds of dirt in the process. Heavy duty, contoured mats with a lip to hold the dirt and moisture from melting snow do the best job.

So there you have it-a good start on customizing your vehicle's cockpit so you can be as comfortable and cozy on the freeway as your are in front of your fireplace. Well, almost.