Carrying the bike in the back of the car

[ny biker]

I never leave my bike in the car overnight.

I cover the bike with a blanket that is the same color as my car interior, so you can see there's something lumpy in there but you don't know what it is.

The first year I had the car, I had a vinyl shower curtain under the bike to protect the car from dirt. After a while the shower curtain got some holes in it, so I tossed it and since then I don't put anything down. I haven't had a problem since then with dirt inside the car.

The blanket that covers the bike, however, has plenty of grease stains on it.

[thekarens]

Well, it wasn't pretty, but I managed to wrangle it in with only one spot on my pants. My bike is on the heavy side so I think next time I'll have my partner help me. I ended up putting it 3/4 of the way in and then pulling it the rest of the way in. I'm not sure how I feel about it resting on the pedal and handle bar. I'm assuming that's ok.

[szsz]

The other thing I do: I have a nylon re-usable shopping bag positioned so that when I put the bike in the back, the front tire lands on it and I can slide it all forward.

This helps!

[Crankin]

I don't do anything special, except put my bike in, rear wheel first, derailleur side up. My bike is really light.
I used to have a small sedan where I put the seats down and slid the bike in the back, through the hatch. No taking wheels off, or anything. My bike is small, though. No cover on the car or the bike and frankly, I didn't care if a little grease got on the upholstery. Sometimes, I had to work a little to get the bars in the right position to get in there. Now I have a station wagon, with black insides, so the grease part is a moot point. My second bike, with the couplers is a bit heavier, mostly because of the rack on the back, so it feels awkward to put in the car, but it's not hard.
On Mondays, I sometimes ride with my last client, who lives about 5 miles from me. So, I end up with my bike in the back all day, as I don't have time to go home first. Every other week, the person I see before him lives in the projects in Lawrence, and I never once have worried about my bike. Maybe I'm naive, but, you can barely see inside the car, and the bike is kind of in there, in between all my therapy "toys."
I used to be more worried about my car, but then i saw that an Audi didn't really stand out, as a good portion of the drivers are using the profits of the drug trade to drive really nice cars.

[trickycoolj]

I used to put my MTB in the back of my Fit before I got a roof rack. I did many of the things mentioned here as well, bought cheapo black bath towels at WalMart to wrap the bike in and protect the sides of the car. Scratched up one of the panels when some part was rubbing on the side of the car in the trunk. Another thing to watch out for is your back bumper. I forget if Rav4's have a bumper protector on the top (it was optional on my Fit) and if you're having trouble hiking it up into the car it's really easy to scratch the paint off if the pedal catches the lip of the bumper. After riding I know I was too tired to lift the pedal up and over a few times and have some nice paint chips on my bumper, unfortunately it was black under the silver paint so it looks really bad and the dealer is always out of touch up paint to buy.

Consider keeping an eye on craigslist for used bike racks. REI has car racks on sale right now (it's only once or twice a year) so as people upgrade you might find their old racks for sale. Most of my racks came secondhand as my mom's boyfriend upgraded all of his gear the last few years.

[OakLeaf]

One thing I didn't mention, if you want to protect your car from stains, protect the seat backs as well as the surface underneath your bike. I have way more scuffage from tire dirt on the seat backs, than on the carpet over the spare tire.