When you look at your car’s cloth interior, is it all dirty and stained? Well, you are definitely not alone. During normal use of your vehicle the interior is going to get soiled and have a few stains from accidental spills. I have good news, you can easily find out how to clean upholstery and make it look as new as possible again.
Car Upholstery Cleaning
This article is based around how to clean car upholstery made of cloth and not leather. To do this we shampoo the carpet and seats. We must make a shampoo solution to scrub the interior with and then we simply vacuum it up. To make the shampoo we need a good degreaser. We can use either dawn dish washing liquid or my preference which is super clean or power clean, a car upholstery cleaner available at most auto parts houses. Either will give you great results. Now we need a bucket or container that will hold three or more gallons. Fill it with clean water and then add a small amount of the cleaner. When using the purple cleaner, you just want to add enough to barely change the color of the water. If using dawn, just a teaspoon or so in 2.5 gallons will work. The main thing is, we do not want tons of foaming soap that would be difficult to remove. Before we get any further, we need to check that the cleaning solution will not fade or damage the cloth. Just take a white cloth and dip in the solution and rub an area under a seat or somewhere hidden and make sure the color isn’t coming off onto the towel. If for some reason it does, you should not go any further. I would call a professional shop and ask what to use as a cleaner or have them do it.
How to Clean Car Seats
When reading about how to clean upholstery you will find the most important item needed to shampoo your cars interior yourself is a wet/dry vacuum cleaner. This is used to extract the water and dirt from the seats and carpet. The only other things needed would be a scrub brush and some clean towels. Use a small hand towel to soak an entire seat down with the shampoo solution. If the whole seat isn’t wet you will see a streak where the wet and dry areas meet so wetting the entire seat is important. Then use your scrub brush to brush the seats down really well. After brushing simply vacuum every nook and cranny of the seat. Repeat this process on the more stained areas of the seat until you are satisfied. When finished vacuuming the seat, use a dry towel to rub the seat down. this removes more dirt and a little more water. Now we just need to do the rest of the car using this same process.
It is imperative we get the interior dried in a reasonable amount of time. If not it can sour and smell musty, which will be hard to get rid of. One way to help it dry quickly is turn the heater on high and roll the windows down just a little. This can take a few hours of your car idling, but is very effective. If you have a garage or somewhere you can leave the windows down without concern, just blow a fan in the window all night and it will be dry in the morning.
Clean Car Upholstery Stains
As the interior is drying you may notice stains that seem to keep floating to the top. You can just use a dry towel and rub these areas to keep them clean as it dries. You just have to check on the drying process every so often and keep them wiped down. When you decide to do this type of job, you will quickly find that this requires a lot of bending, a physical labor. Most people choose to have someone clean it for them like a car interior detailing shop, but if you are into saving money this how you can do just that.