It usually doesn’t matter whether a customer has kids. If I’m doing any kind of work outside the car, or on the engine, it doesn’t matter. But then if I have to work on the interior, it can make things harder.

One of the common issues when working on family cars, especially family minivans, is the child seats. A lot of times I have to fold or remove seats, and I can’t do that when there’s a child seat in it. I have to figure out how to remove it, and then when I’m done I have to leave it disconnected for the customer to reinstall, because the safety of their child seat is not my responsibility.

Another thing that can make the jobs harder is the other stuff that may be in the car, like strollers. I had to fold down the rear seat to get a trim panel off, so I had to remove this large stroller and a bunch of other stuff. When customers know that they’re bringing their car in for interior work or for something involving the seats, I would hope that they would clean out at least some of the stuff in their car, but most don’t.

And then there’s just the disgusting ones. Food and garbage all over the floor. I know kids are messy, but this is not fun to sit in and crawl around in. I don’t even want to think about the stale food I’ve found. Please clean your car periodically, especially when headed to the shop for interior work!

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-Dan