Instruction: Cleaning dirty cloth floormats and stained carpet or upholstery

[WannaMini_]

I tried a search on this, and didn't quite find the answer I was looking for. I thought with some of these posts, I would kickoff a series of instructional posts that hadn't been covered in detail?

Say you are getting ready to detail a car - someone paying you money. You open up the door to find:

1. ketchup stains on the seat (cloth)
2. coffee stains on the carpet and seat
3. vomit stains on the carpet (your customer was kind enough to be the DD for his buddies that night)
4. cigarette burns on the carpet and upholstery
5. The car reaks of stale smoke
6. The carpet floor mats are worn and FILTHY dirty
7. And there's dried mud and road salt through.

What steps do you take to make this interior look as good as possible? Where would you start? A good vacuuming I suppose? What products do you take for each of these stains/issues, and what equipment/tools would you use with those products?

Thank you!

[kenchan]

dip the car in bleach. j/k

i found Griot's Interior Cleaner did wonders removing most stains.
for coffee stains, i tried vinegar and water 50/50 and worked pretty well.

you can use Fabreeze (was it?) to make it smell nice, i suppose...
or just douce it with Slick or Hydro.

[iceckid]

Well, Ive done most of these clean-ups on cars other than my Mini (thankfully), in most cases the cars were rentals that needed to be turned around & re-rented.

The most common ailment is usually a car that reaks of cigarette smoke. I shop vac the interior removing any trace of ash and then spray the heck out of the car with fabreze. Our fabreze comes concentrated and we mix it a little strong. Lastly there is no replacement for airing the car out as much as possible. A strong fabreze smell if most of the time better that a smoky one, but the airing helps.

Worn, filthy dirty floor mats? Replace them - for the amount of effort that you would put into them making them look semi-reasonable it will be more cost-effective just getting replacements.

Most everything else i'd use elbow grease and any ol soap you have on hand. (even concentrate fabreze can help remove some stains)

[S Curvz]

another vote for interior cleaner. I hear Tuffstuff is also good.

[mcdbrendan]

303 anyone??? I just bought a bottle specifically for this use and I really can't wait to try it out. Maybe my Jeep will be the test vehicle...

[jwardell]

For carpet and upholstery stains, use 303 Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner, it is the best there is. For the plastic and vinyl parts there are a ton of decent producs from 303 Aerospace Protectant to Vinylex etc.

[mcdbrendan]

"ketchup stains on the seat (cloth)
coffee stains on the carpet and seat
vomit stains on the carpet (your customer was kind enough to be the DD for his buddies that night)
cigarette burns on the carpet and upholstery
The car reaks of stale smoke
The carpet floor mats are worn and FILTHY dirty
And there's dried mud and road salt through."

if you just copy and paste that to the search bar, tons of results come up...






(kidding)

[S Curvz]

Originally Posted by mcdbrendan

303 anyone??? I just bought a bottle specifically for this use and I really can't wait to try it out. Maybe my Jeep will be the test vehicle...

I love using the jeep as a test bed.

[mcdbrendan]

Haha. They usually go through the worst of the worst so it's nice to pamper them once in a while.

[S Curvz]

I havent pampered mine, only washed it once. Maybe I should...