Best Car Organizers: Everything In Its Place

Top 8 Best Car Organizers

Hey, you. Yeah, you with the landfill masquerading as a car. It’s time to clean it up and get organized. Having a spot in which to store all the detritus of daily life is important. It’s even more important to keep it in reach of the ankle biters unless you really like stopping every five minutes to find the juice boxes. Heck, even those of us who travel solo can use a bit of help keeping things in the car at bay.

We’ve assembled an octet of car organizers, all found on Amazon and all intended to help you get your life back together. Or at least help clean up your act.

With a 4.8 out of 5-star rating based on nearly 4000 reviews, this simple cargo organizer is surely one of the most highly regarded items - let alone organizers - on Amazon. Promoted as a firm and sturdy unit constructed of 5mm density board and waterproof cloth, there's a good chance this thing will survive whatever lifestyle (or family) activities are thrown at it.

A pair of reinforced aluminum handles sprout from the sides, making the thing easy to carry. There are three compartments to sort out your items, with a couple of subdividers plus flap and mesh pockets to keep detritus at bay. A stout cover means your unmentionables won't be seen by prying eyes - unless you want them on display, of course. We won't judge. Much.

Tired of one-percenters tooling around in their Bentley motor cars, flashing their decadent seatback trays in your face? With this organizer, you can not only eat the rich but also your lunch, as it incorporates a fold-down tray.

That tray can only bear about 5 pounds in weight, so don't place an entire order of Kentucky Fried on it, okay? Its surface is anti-kick, meaning back-seat minions can fire their filthy Vans at them without marring the surface. Waterproof and easy to clean, this seatback organizer should last for ages – or at least until you upgrade to a Rolls-Royce.

Feel like storing all your gear within reach while running deliveries around the streets of your city? Do you have a desire to demarcate the space between the front row of seats and the peanut gallery? This mesh organizer goes suspended mid-air between the two front seatbacks, as if a determined spider was trying to spin a thick web.

The ad claims that while the straps themselves are adjustable, the mesh pockets are largely devoid of elasticity in order to prevent the inevitable sagging once heavy items are placed in the organizer. This net is also marketed as a pet barrier, though it would have to be one particularly small or lazy pet for this thing to prevent the forward movement of any animal.

This particular car organizer rises to the top of our list because one very similar to it resided in the back of your author's dilapidated Ford Escort many moons ago. This organizer’s suspended design hangs off the back seat, freeing up trunk real estate for important shipments of family groceries and moonshine.

A trio of adjustment straps keeps the works of it lashed to headrests or seatbacks - your choice - while a quartet of pockets keeps your expensive vintages from rolling around in the boot and becoming destroyed. Handy flaps hide your valuables from prying eyes. A bottle holder stands ready for beverages and a removable pouch is great for a bug-out situation

Priced at just 10 bucks, this organizer is primarily a trash can with a mesh pocket around its perimeter. It does have a collapsible shape and adjustable straps, allowing the thing to be suspended aloft from the car’s headrests or tossed on the floor like a sack of potatoes. A leakproof lining keeps spills at bay.

This lining means that one doesn’t have to use it as a trash can, with the seller showing multiple pictures of cold drinks or snacks being stored in the rectangular space. Reviews are overwhelmingly positive, with many customers claiming the size is ideal and not invasive to the car’s cabin. Lyft and Uber drivers, in particular, seem to be big fans.

If you’re one of the many drivers who loses stuff down in that crevvie between the seat and center console, this may be a solution you want to examine. Designed to fit in that narrow slot (also called the black hole of death in our car), it fits the space in which so many keys and papers have been lost. Plus that candy bar which was never found.

The English-as-a-sixth-language ad says this product will “solve disorder problem of your beloved car” which is the greatest description of any car organizer I have ever read. Some cars have more disorder problems than others, so the makers of this unit see fit to include a brace of them with every order.

Taking up a big footprint, this organizer is best suited for those who seek to keep their groceries from being tossed around like rice at a wedding. Made of strong polyester (like your father’s suits) with reinforced stitching, it’s easy to clean and comes with a trio of adjustable dividers made from durable PVC material.

Measuring a vast two feet long by a foot wide and 14.7 inches tall, there are few daily carry items that can’t be contained by this organizer. A series of belts and buckles keeps the thing anchored, so feel free to put that extra bottle of windshield wash in one side and those jumper cables in the other. A pair of handles allow for quick removal.

These things are probably what immediately springs to mind when one talks about car organizers, as one often does at wild Friday night parties. Designed to hold a couple of drinks and the random detritus of life, these units strap onto the front seatbacks and increase storage space for backseat urchins tenfold.

A clear pocket is provided so haggard parents can deploy a tablet with several episodes of Spongebob in an effort to quell the backseat racket during a particularly stressful portion of the drive to Disney. Those storage pockets mentioned earlier are mesh, reducing the number of “where’s my stuff?” queries when the stuff is, in fact, right in front of them. Ahem. Yes.

FAQs

What should I put in my car organizer?

Because your car may have several compartments and consoles to store the essentials, the following is a list of items that you can organize according to their usage and ease of accessibility:

Glove Compartment

Depending on your vehicle, the glove compartment could have enough space to hold mandatory and some other useful elements. That said, you can consider keeping the following few items in it:

A complete first-aid and trauma kit, just to keep you safe in case of an emergency

Disposable glasses

Necessary car documents like registration certificate, insurance proof, etc.

If you mostly travel with family members who prefer listening to their favorite music, having a headphone in the glove compartment would be a wise thing to do as well

Center Console

Most cars nowadays have a center console where you can keep things that you want to have easy access to. Such entities include:

A pen and a notepad

Hand sanitizer

Hand moisturizer

Cellphone charging/data cable

A flashlight

A USB drive

Some loose change

A couple of mouth fresheners

An umbrella (if there’s enough space)

Dashboard

If the dashboard of your car doesn’t have any space to keep items, you may want to buy a non-slippery mat to hold your cellphone, tissue paper box, a couple of business cards, etc.

Additional Tip

For the center console, you should consider getting a few smaller containers, preferably some mini baskets where you can keep the items according to their category. For instance, the sanitizer and moisturizer can go in one of them, the USB drive and phone charging cable in another, and so on.

Are trunk organizers worth it?

Yes, they are. You can use the trunk of your car to keep a bag as a backup for emergencies. This could be most helpful if you are in a touring business, and in some instances, you don’t have enough time to pack your things and need to rush without them.

Further, you can also store some carry bags that could come in handy when you’re out shopping and have too many items. Because most cars nowadays come with an underfloor compartment in the trunk, such bags can be folded and stored there and accessed when needed.

How do you secure a trunk organizer?

It is imperative to have carry bags that do not move when the car turns or stops abruptly. However, because finding such carriers could be challenging, it would be good to have some spare foam in the trunk. When you have enough stuff to fill the carry bags, you can put those blocks of foam on the sides for support. This would not only prevent the bags from rolling but will also protect the delicate items in them from damage.

How do I organize a small car console?

For a small car console, you don’t need mini baskets to categorize your things. Instead, you can have small boxes for each. For instance, you can have a plastic box for the phone charging cable and USB drive. Similarly, you can use a small jewelry box to keep moisturizer and sanitizer in it, and so on. Also, if the console is not that spacious, you can skip the large items like an umbrella, and even use a smaller flashlight.

The bottom line is, that the lesser the space is, the fewer and smaller items you should carry.

From time to time, TTAC will highlight automotive products we think may be of interest to our community. Plus, posts like this help to keep the lights on around here. Learn more about how this works.

(Editor’s note: This post is meant to both help you be an informed shopper for automotive products but also to pay for our ‘90s sedan shopping habits operating expenses. Some of you don’t find these posts fun, but they help pay for Junkyard Finds, Rare Rides, Piston Slaps, and whatever else. Thanks for reading.)

[Product images provided by the manufacturer.]