As we are driving to California for the holidays with the in-laws while including a slight detour to the Grand Canyon this year, Thurday’s chores included getting our ride washed as well as making it ready for the trip in general. Of course that meant actually emptying the cupholders so they can be used to actually hold cups of drinks along the way. Americans love their cupholders, the more the merrier. The set closest to me tends to fill up with all kinds of stuff as they make perfect storage nooks, so I decided to take a look at what I actually use them for instead of holding drinks.
This particular vehicle actually has four in the front, two of them are usually as shown above, then I use one of the other spaces (that pop out of the dash) to hold my phone and then the last one for my own drinks. The doors also have bottle holders and then the back has a couple of cupholders as well, all of those are usually empty. But this is the main set, so without further ado, here we go!
The first (and by far most gear-heady) item is some J-B Weld. I actually used it in this vehicle a couple of months ago when I grabbed the grab handle to get in and must have been way too manly for it, as the whole handle pulled its mounting tabs through the A-pillar trim with its screws still attached and I almost (almost!) fell on my ass.
A dollop of J-B Weld has cured it (it looks perfect!) and while I still use the grab handle, I try not to put all of my weight on it and have perfected a new routine to mount my steed involving the steering wheel instead. At the time I was either too lazy to put the J-B Weld back in the toolbox or figured maybe it’d come in handy again soon. But most likely just lazy. For those of you not familiar with the brand, i.e. our overseas viewers, it’s more or less a two-part epoxy that works miracles. Mix a dollop of the red tube with a dollop from the black tube, and Bob’s your uncle.
My “spare” pair of sunglasses, polarized, no particular brand. Actually they have a “Vans” logo so one of my kids probably got them for me at some point. Usually I use a similar style but tortoise-shell-look version from SunCloud but since those are starting to get scratched may start using these as my main set. Sunglasses always seem to fit in cupholders, it’s almost like you can toss them in from outside of the car and they just always drop right into place.
A plumbing tee I picked up at Lowe’s a month or so ago that I need to install in my going-on-way-too-long project house in Laramie to finish installing the dishwasher by teeing off the existing supply line to the sink faucet. I’ve been up there several times since buying this and apparently keep forgetting about it. I need to move this to a more noticeable spot, obviously.
The cigarette lighter which I took out of the dash on day one and replaced it with a power port to charge the phone. This I now dropped into the center console bin where it will likely stay forever since I have no need for it otherwise.
A pen from Nissan! This I received either when I was invited to check out the new Nissan Titan or the new Nissan Leaf, either way it writes excellently (on paper or on my hand) and it’s always handy to have a pen within reach. This now also moved into the center console bin but will surely end up back in the cupholder quite soon.
Somehow I always end up stuffing various receipts into my cupholders until I have a large wad of them and then they get put in the various bookkeeping piles on my desk. Eventually these piles make it to MYOB Bookkeeping Services where they take care of everything. Here is one from Lowe’s, another from Ace in Laramie, one from our local soil/garden/green waste place and another from the City of Laramie.
An accessory key, the other one is on my keychain, but by having it in the cupholder I know exactly where it is, or so the thinking goes. It’s also now in the center console bin but may require more digging when I need it.
And last but not least, of course some trash. In this case a wrapper from a lollipop from my local bank. They have bouquets of them so I usually grab a handful. I’m good about taking the sticks with me and disposing of them as I eat them, but the wrappers for some reason stay around.
And we are good to go! Just a quick wipe down to remove the dust and this cupholder is all ready to hold anything from a 12oz can of soda to my Grande Bold Drip with a little bit of room from Starbucks that I’ll pick up at 7am to a 44oz Sweet Tea from wherever we stop at lunch along with whatever the person in the passenger seat wants. So, what’s in your cupholder?
Nothing! I use my cup holder everyday. It holds my 20ounce Red Bull that I drink I
On the way to the office every day.
You’re correct about cupholders being decent phone holders.
The front of the console in my Prius has 2 tidy fold-away cup holders. One has random receipts and other detritus, and I drop my phone into it when I get in the car. The other one is empty, and is either closed or carrying a cup.
The rear of the center console has another 2 fold-out cupholders, ostensibly for the rear-seat passengers, but I’ve never had any. It currently holds a can of air-freshener-in-a-can.
That looks like my wife’s cup holders where there is small containers of anti-bacterial soap, a packet of hot sauce, napkins, latex gloves and so forth. Constantly cleaning it all out.
Mine: absolutely nothing because I value neat, clean and organized.
Gum, reading glasses, receipts, and coffee… Pretty much always.
Depends on the vehicle and what other available storage there is. Our old Mountaineer (with column shift) has a nice little bin where most of the stuff ends up, it even includes a nice little spot for a pen or pencil. There is another little cupholder ish spot that will usually carry that odd fastener that I’m going to track down a replacement/companion for, maybe a paper clip or something like that, normally leaving the cup holders for cups.
In other vehicles the cup holders do tend to get things like you have in yours, however the only receipts that end up there are the ones that don’t matter, ie things that aren’t a tax deduction. Stuff that is deductible, reimbursable or needs to be turned in goes directly in my wallet and once it starts getting too fat I pull them out and sort them accordingly.
My house and my office can be cluttered, but clutter in my car makes me want to set it on fire. So my cupholders are clean and ready for cup-holding duty. And my car has a little bin in front of the cupholders for the sunglasses (and rarely anything else).
Nothing in the cup holders. The shelf above appears to contain sunglasses, small hand sanitizer bottle, piece of broken vertical blind for matching at store for replacement, napkin from take out meal utensil pack, and two Apple lightning cables.
I recognize that Highlander shelf, we love ours! That’s the best feature ever – like in an old VW Squareback.
Phone when driving, usb 12v adapter/iPhone cable, receipts lining the edges, and loose change at all times. My Cougar doesn’t have cup holders so my lack of mobile beverage consumption is deeply engrained in me from my formative driving years in that, but it’s amazing how fast I can fill those two little holes fill up with junk in every other car I get in. Nothing makes me more disorganized than an overabundance of storage spaces.
Suff I’m too lazy to take inside my house:
-Gasoline receipts
-sunglasses (2x)
-baseball (caught at a minor league game)
-bridge toll receipts (pulled during Turbo Tax time)
-Lowe’s & Home Depot receipts (again, Turbo Tax time)
-Nuts, bolts; & screws (rental property fix up left overs)
The next question should be: What’s in your center console???
( just don’t ask a teenager that question😉😉😉)
Yeah, I would think there isn’t much variance on what’s kept in cupholders. Change for tolls, sunglasses, cellphone & charger, receipts, all pretty much the same stuff that’s accessed and used on a regular, daily basis.
OTOH, the contents of the center console (and glove compartment) is where you might find a more accurate reflection of the owner’s individual personality.
Mine usually just holds bottled water, juice, or soft drinks, although underneath them there may be spare change since there isn’t a good place for coins in my VW Rabbit. I actually just bought a windshield or dash mount phone holder/wireless recharger last night, but I rarely stored my phone in the cup holder. My shades have a perch in front of the (manual) shifter.
Receipts can be problematic. I used to store them in the glovebox, but they have a tendency to fall backward out of the closed glovebox where they then land in the ventilation fan which chews it up and makes noise, and requires lots of disassembly to get at. I still keep receipts there, but need to make sure that something with substantial weight is above any receipts or postcards in the glovebox.
I found a dead spider in one of mine.
One of my cars doesn’t even HAVE a cupholder!
Easily rectified!
There’s no cupholder in my Falcon, either. Perhaps needless to say, but I have spilled an unfortunate amount drinks on my front seat over the years. Ugh!
Right now, a water bottle. They are generally used for water or coffee or holding a phone(s) that need charging. Front cubby holds sunglass clip, pencil, log book, etc.
We all have our obsessions, and (one of) mine is an uncluttered car. Therefore, nothing in my cupholders. Heck, in my former Crown Victoria, I wouldn’t even put cups in the cupholders!
Recently I took over our Odyssey as my daily driver after I sold the Crown Vic. The first thing I did was to clean out the cupholders and all of the other cubbies of all of the random stuff that had accumulated in them after the years when we used the Odyssey as a family travel vehicle.
Here’s some of the cupholders now — nice, clean and neat. I could include pictures of all 16 of the Odyssey’s cupholders, but I don’t want to crash CC’s server with cupholder pics.
I currently have a small tape measure, a stubby Phillips head screwdriver and a USB stick in one side, put my phone in the other to get it out of my pocket.
I’m afraid I have OCD, but I can’t stand having crap in my cupholders. I keep them clean, though my spouse and my kids aren’t as fastidious, so wrappers, lip balm, receipts and sun glasses do sneak-in….
In my Camry I can either drive stick shift comfortably or have cups in the cup holder so I never have anything in there for long.
In my Sienna there is some miscellaneous trash as well as a pair of Ear Plugs that could come in handy. A chalkboard eraser for clearing the windshield, and sometimes a pair of sunglasses. Sometimes there are alcohol glasses or bottles in the way back cup holders from attending a Brew Fest or after a day at the beach if there is no one else to put them.
I can’t stand anything in the cupholders! My wife keeps hers full of hair doodads, receipts, gum, pens, loose change, you name it. I have these sandstone type thingies that came in my “gift bag” when I bought the car. They are handy for absorbing condensation off a cold drink in the summer I suppose, but more often than not I have a large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee there.
I just got a couple of those things from my bank and stuck them in there for the trip! But didn’t use and canned drinks, unfortunately. Maybe on the way back….
Cupholder coasters!
Sometimes a foam cup of coffee, sometimes my phone, before that the portable music player, before that an extinguishing ashtray. I’m picky about clutter. When we had the minivan, my wife had all compartments, cupholders, and an auxiliary console with two more cupholders filled with…everything. Now that she uses the Taurus it is all in her purse. Receipts, yep. Hair thingys? Oh, yes. Halls wrappers, uh huh. Movie stubs from the “Cars” movie? Probably.
Most of my cars were built or designed in the ’70s and don’t have them.
I can only think of a handful of times where I thought that I actually needed one. But when Im in a modern car, I usually just throw my wallet and cell phone in it until I actually have a cup to put in it
The SS has a nice cubby ahead of the shifter, so it usually has two pair of bifocal glasses (sun and clear). The tops are uncorrected and the bottom inset is basically a 2.00x reader. The cupholders are aft of the ‘wand of power,’ so they are usually empty, although I might occasionally use them as a temporary rubbish or change bin. They are only occupied with beverages when I’m on a road trip, and the empties are thrown out at the next fuel-up.
I normally keep the cupholders in the truck empty, but they make a handy place to store small tools or supplies for whatever project I might be working on.
I like to keep my cupholders mostly clean. That goes for the rest of the car too. Its more enjoyable to make the payments on a clean car than a dirty one.
Crumpled receipts.
Cupholders. Let’s see. The front ones (two) have air in them, unless there are travel mugs in them. Rarely a phone might end up in one of them. The ones in the back seat hardly ever have even a cup in them, unless the center armrest is down, because that’s where the cupholders are. For reasons unknown, our most likely back-seat passengers are a most incurious lot. There’s a center armrest. Do they use it? No. Do they adjust the A/C louvers for their comfort? No. Do they ever figure out the individual ceiling lights for each seat? No. At any rate, our cupholders mostly get used for … cups.
The Mustang has two cupholders for the front seat in the console; there are none in the back because no one ever rides in the back seat of a Mustang. One of these cup holders contains a small cup (cut down to fit) with several dollars in change; I seldom use this change to purchase anything but instead, when the cup gets full, I take it inside and dump it into the #1 change box. The other cup holder functions as the cell phone holder; we seldom use the Mustang for any type of extended trip that would require fluid replenishment.
My wife’s RAV4 doesn’t have as many cup holders as did the Highlander we had previously but it still has enough for the two of us. There are two in the console, even if one of them is so far forward it is awkward to use when driving. The front doors have holders that will deal with most water bottles molded in at the bottom; again these can be difficult to access from the driver’s seat. I assume that the back seat has some sort of provision for drinks but I have never been back there and don’t plan to start now.
The Nissan pen made me smile. I still have pens acquired with a vehicle purchased in 2006. My wife had taught the sales manager in high school and we got all sorts of (cheap) swag.
The only cupholders in my vehicles are attached to the end of my arms or one between my legs. The automatic trucks have the arm mounted ones, the manual shift car and truck get the other one.
It depends upon the vehicle. My pickup has crumpled receipts and an ink pen or two. The ’18 Impala I drive at work has the cupholders reserved for me drink. Then again, when I’m in it I’m going a decent distance. They are a great size for a Wendy’s 32 ounce sweet tea or even a Sonic Route 44 sweet tea. I’m not a soda guy.
Mostly crumpled receipts, phone sometimes, a drink sometimes, garage door opener if it fell off the sun visor, and so on. Sometimes an unopened container of fuel injector cleaner to remember to add it in next tankful.
Speaking of which, Paul: could you sometime survey CC-ers on additives they swear by, or pooh-pooh? (injector cleaner, STP, Lucas Oil stuff, SeaFoam, etc.).
I chuckled seeing this QOTD survey, because fark.com (perhaps a few CC-ers hang out there, too) just entertainingly surveyed everyone on “what’s in your junk drawer?”: https://www.fark.com/comments/10265447/Whats-in-YOUR-junk-drawer-Mine-has-rubber-bands-pens-pencils-erasers-AAA-batteries-a-mini-Leatherman-personal-lubricant-a-Matchbox-Sherman-Tank
My cupholders flip out of the armrest (and won’t really hold anything except drinks) so 90% of the time nothing is in them.
Let’s not discuss the rolling junk drawer that is my backseat however. 🙂
My Tacoma has 3 cup holders in front, not counting the door pockets. Usually a pair of glasses of some sort, perhaps a coffee cup or water bottle. Behind the shifter is a small square bin, perfect for the smart key and my phone. Except. If the phone tips forward when I’m in Park or Reverse, it gets wedged in place and prevents the shifter moving past Neutral to get into Drive. Very annoying.
My center console is more interesting. Toll transponder, tape measure, folding Torx and Allen wrench sets, Kleenex, pen, paper, Swiss Army knife, USB charger, a few Clif Bars and energy gel, and a bunch more crap that somehow all fits in there.
Don’t ask me what’s under the back seat. Yes, I pack a lot of stuff, just in case.
Nothing.
It’s a principle, though there might be a couple Xmas tree needles waiting for the vacuum cleaner
God forbid that Mercedes would lower the tone of their cars by building cup holders in their cars. My ’94 W124 has none, much to the shock and disgust of my friends. I tell them to stick their drinks between their legs; keeps them warm too!
You’re mild. I tell anybody to keep drinks and food out of my car entirely.
I don’t care about the outside of my daily driver, it’s always covered in a layer of dust or mud. But I friggin’ hate a dusty, filthy, greasy, smelly, smudgy interior.
Needless to mention that I don’t use the cup holders for anything.
A Bluetooth speaker for my smartphone. I’m too cheap and way too lazy to bother with replacing the stock Delco AM/FM radio, and this still leaves me with one cupholder for actual cups.
Because I’ve had two cars stolen and two others broken into over the many decades I’ve lived in SoCal, I tend to keep next to nothing in the car, especially anything that is visible or of value to me. And like XRMatt I rarely drink anything in the car. So the cupholders are empty though the phone goes there when I’m driving. There is a water bottle stored in the door holder. The covered console box has the same crumpled receipts everyone else mentions.
Usually my phone and a bottle of water. I usually keep a few extra bottles of water in my car, as it’s a good place to consciously hydrate.
In my Hyundai Elantra, I keep the optional lidded ashtray from the smokers package in the one cup holder. I don’t smoke but I need somewhere for the spare coins to go. The other one is ether empty or holding my contigo spill proof cup or if i am going somewhere that i need a map for then my phone goes into the cup holder in order to use the Android connect thing to allow me to use google maps.
My phone hangs out in my passenger seat most of the time. I have bluetooth in my car so I can see who is calling and answer the phone with the push of a button on the steering wheel.
On the van, the cup holders fold up and since I have a crap ton of space in it, I keep the holders folded up when no drink is present.
A yeti with Dunk’s black, hot or iced depending on the season.
My car doesn’t have cupholders but the doorbins fill up with fuel receipts quickly. I make a point of cleaning the inside of the car regularly though: the Corsa C interior isn’t much to look at, but keeping it clean and dust-free makes does make it a nicer place to be.
“What’s a cupholder?”- my ’93 Ranger.
what trim level? My 93 Ranger XLT with auto had a mini console on the floor with two large cupholders and my friend’s 93 XLT with stick has two cupholders in the gearshift surround.
I actually use my cupholders for travel mugs or water bottles.so I keep them clear of clutter. Interestingly my car came with “booster seats” for 12 oz. cups since they are sized for 16 oz.cups or bicycle water bottles.Sadly our Mazda CX-5 only has 2 cup holders in front and two bottle holders in the rear doors, unlike our Mazda5 which had 6 cupholders, and oddly the third row cupholders were really useful for either spare water bottles or empty travel mugs