Cleaning car upholstery

[Sharlla]

What can I use that I have laying around the house? I bought a car and the upholstery is pretty dirty (from dirt) Any ideas TIA

[Spastica]

First of all, pick up all the stuff out of the car and vacuum. If you have stink problems, you can sprinkle everything with some baking soda, wait a few hours and then vacuum it up.

Then, you can use diluted shampoo or diluted dishwashing liquid (like Dawn or something) and a big fat damp sponge to scrub the upholstery. You can also do any canned foam cleaners - I personally have a carpet foam cleaner in the house, so I use that for the car - I use it for spills and doggie accidents. I'm sure you can even use shaving foam.

For freshness, you can put some essential oils in a spray bottle with some water and some baking soda dissolved in it and use it like Febreze (spelling?) on your upholstery. White vinegar helps too - I've had smelly couches, and I've misted straight white vinegar and that helped. The smell goes away when it dries.

One of my favorite products that gets rid of ANYTHING stinky is Arm and Hammer Pet Odor Carpet Deodorizer. It has a super fresh scent and it has baking soda already in it so anything smelly gets neutralized for good. It will also make your car smell brand new.

Of course, you can do what I do - I pay a carwashing service $10 and they vacuum and do carwashing for me (I live in Atlanta, there's a bunch of cheap carwashing places). They vacuum/shampoo the floor rugs and that's it. That would be a good start at least. For more money, they can scrub the interior.

[RiverSky]

Originally Posted by Sharlla

What can I use that I have laying around the house? I bought a car and the upholstery is pretty dirty (from dirt) Any ideas TIA

Do you have a spot cleaner for carpets, like a Bissell Spotlifter? Do you have a steam cleaner at all? Do you have a wet/dry vac or can you borrow one?

I would think that you really need to suck that stuff up. You could get a pail and hot soapy water, a scrub brush, a scrubby sponge and go and scrub the upholstery everywhere and soak it up with towels to get the dirty water out of the upholstery. Keep emptying and refilling the dirty water so that you are only putting clean water on the upholstery. Perhaps have two buckets, one for dirty water, one with clean hot soapy water. Then spray vinegar and soak it up for disinfection and deodorization. It sounds like an awful lot of work to me. What kind of vehicle is it? How much upholstery is dirty?

If you have a wet/dry vacuum, it would be much easier to soak, scrub then suck up the wet dirty water out of the upholstery (much like a steam cleaner).

I have used a Bissell Spotlifter to clean large areas of carpet and all types of stains out of upholstery and carpet in vehicles that I have owned. You can use white vinegar instead of soap, if you want, or use a very small amount of Dr. Bronner's. If you don't have a Spotlifter, Green Machine, steam cleaner or a wet/dry vac, can you ask if anyone you know has one?

If the upholstery is light and there are any organic bright stains, I would suggest using OxiClean, but definitely make sure to test first, because the OxiClean could bleach the fabric if it is naturally too dark.

Good luck!

[Sharlla]

I have a shop vac that is wet and dry, that is it. The upholstery (light blue) is just dirty from dirt, but there isn't any spots, just overall grunginess. I have vacuumed out the car really well. On the front passanger floor board it was so caked with mud and chewing gum that it wasnt even carpet anymore. I had gone through 10 buckets of water and it's still dirty, sigh. but at least it has carpet tecture again. I borrowed one of those little mini spot cleaning machines but that is pretty much worthless as it doesn't scrub very well or suck up the water well either.

I can't believe that someone would sell a car wtihout cleaning it out first. It took me 2 days of scrubbing (well as good as I can with a baby that wants my constant attention) and it still needs more work.

The car is a 1995 chevrolet lumina. I got it for $550, the interior is in good condition (no rips, stains, or cracks in the dash) it's just dirty and needs cleaned (well that one floor board is probably stained for good, I can't believe they were't using floor mats) I can't drive it for another two weeks, so I don't mind a little elbow grease in the meanwhile.

So I should scrub it with hot soapy water and vacuum up with the wet vac?

[RiverSky]

Originally Posted by Sharlla

So I should scrub it with hot soapy water and vacuum up with the wet vac?

Yeah, I think so. You could even boil water, add a little dish soap and practically pour it on (not the entire bucket but in half-cup-fuls for instance) then vacuum is up. You add a scrubbing phase in there if you feel that it will help. That's essentially what a Rug Doctor steam cleaner does, right? Pours on water, then sucks it up. Then I would do it again, with hot water and white vinegar, to get out the soap (if you don't get it out, dirt will just stick to it again) and to deodorize and sanitize. I would think that by then, it'd be about as clean as it could get without paying to have it detailed from someone who will use much harsher chemicals and charge you way more.

If there is still chewing gum and you can't get it off, perhaps if you cut it off with scissors or box cutter. The carpet fibers would be shorter in that area, but I'm guessing that would be preferable. You could also purchase floor mats which would be much easier to clean and cover the stains with them. If you have a Pick-a-Part or other type of vehicle salvage business in your area, chances are you could get floor mats in perfectly good condition for very cheap.


Good luck!

[Sharlla]

Thanks, I did get the gum up, I did the BS and vinigar trick a few times on that carpet. It's the only part of the car that is really bad. I wonder why? I'll definitely be getting floor mats as well

[RiverSky]

Did you try the wet/dry vacuum trick? Did it help? How are you enjoying the car?