Get a heavy duty kind of dual action polisher, never buy cheap ones. Like many areas of car care and auto detailing, how to clean car upholstery is an area filled with so many different opinions and strategies that many people like yourself feel overwhelmed at the very thought. The shine is also impressive, while not quite as shiny as a carnauba wax it will definitely have people turning heads.
So day after day goes by and the only attention your car’s upholstery ever gets in the best of circumstances is a quick vacuum job. But vacuuming your car’s upholstery is only going to go so far in removing dirt that will accumulate within your car’s interior.
Eventually you will need to find some form of upholstery cleaner, get personal with the interior of your car, and do some scrubbing!
Start With the Basics and Move Forward
Looking into the interior of any car will quickly reveal the endless materials, fabrics, and surfaces that make up any car interior. Upon first glance, how to clean car upholstery within your car is an overwhelming proposition for most people.
Despite your immediate fears and anxiety, cleaning the inside of your car is far easier and simpler than your family, friends, and the neighborhood know-it-all has lead you to believe. The industry itself would have you believe that how to clean car upholstery you would need about 10 different cleaners. One specialized cleaner after another.
First Things First…
Unless your car is excessively dirty, (like junk yard dirty. The kind of filth where you feel the need to soak in a bath of bleach after a short ride) most of you can start by throwing out all the many ideas and opinions that are spinning around in your head:
- No hot water carpet extractors needed here.
- No high-pressure water systems needed.
- No complicated methods or overly specialized cleaning solutions.
Next, with the attempt to simplify things by breaking them down to smaller, doable tasks, I will limit this how to clean car upholstery to include the basic materials in most cars:
- Carpeting
- Cloth/velour fabric
- Vinyl and rubber
- Plastic lined interiors; usually work trucks only.
Laying Down the Rules: How to Clean Car Upholstery
Allow me to explain: With any topic of life there are basic rules to understand and follow. I believe that it is best to first learn the rules, then you can learn to break the rules; and to every rule there are exceptions.
- Not all carpeting or upholstery is created equal; the tighter the weave, the more difficult it will be to clean. Some materials used on seating surfaces will never come completely clean if they are a very tight weave and have become excessively dirty.
- I tight weave means there is little, to no nap. (nap is a term that defines the amount of fibers that stick up above the bottom material. Like carpeting that has individual fibers that stick up and can be sifted through with your fingers and can be brushed to create patterns.)
- Carpeting or upholstery with no nap, or a closed loop weave like Berber carpeting, is very difficult to clean. Some entry-level (cheaply priced and cheaply made) cars have what is more like felt as carpeting than traditional carpeting; this type of “carpeting” is very difficult to not only vacuum, but shampoo. Due to the lack of separate fibers that stick up individually (like traditional carpeting), debris and dirt will embed and get stuck within these fibers, making it difficult to remove.
- The best way to describe this in a simplified manner is like trying to clean your dirty hand in the open position, with all your fingers representing individual fibers (nap), versus having your hand held in a fist with your fingers tightly closed and the dirt stuck in-between your fingers.
- No upholstery shampoo or cleaner has the ability to clean every form of dirt, and numerous factors will determine your overall results; eg. how long has the dirt been allowed to remain there, what is the composition of dirt, what type of fabric/cloth are you cleaning, the cleaners you have chosen.
- I merely inform and show you what I use professionally to get professional grade results.
- I always, always use a fabric protector after every shampooing/cleaning I do when it comes to cloth or fabrics of every kind.
If you break down the various materials in this particular van from above (Chevy Astro Van), you can see how to clean car upholstery could get confusing, over-whelming, or complicated for many people.
- Seating made using both cloth and vinyl.
- Rubber floor mats.
- Carpet fibers.
- Plastic threshold plates/steps.
People look at all these materials and think that each material is going to require its own special form of upholstery cleaner (and the manufacturers are more than happy to sell you a separate product for each form of material), when in fact a quality all-purpose cleaner does exist and can clean virtually everything in your car’s interior.
So the reality is that learning how to clean car upholstery is much more simple and straight-forward than you have probably thought.
How to Clean Car Upholstery Made Simple
How to clean car upholstery actually has some good news in that it can be a much more simple process than many people believe or have come to accept.
- All-purpose cleaners exist that can replace many of the dedicated cleaners filling the shelves of your personal garage, or the shelves of the retail store all screaming at you to purchase. For example: dedicated car leather cleaners, general upholstery shampoos, carpet shampoos, etc.
- Using the “right” all-purpose cleaner along with some strategic tools will not only provide better results, but make the various upholstery cleaning jobs that much easier.