Interior Upholstery Cleaning

[mr evil]

Does anybody have any tried and true methods or products for cleaning the fabrics used in our cars?
Particularly the velour used on seats and upper door panels?

Reading I've done indicates steam or 'hot' systems are not a good idea on velour.

I've got light grey upper panels that are in decent shape but dirty as hell so all ideas welcome....

 

[axisg]

I have had great luck with 50/50 Simple Green in a spray bottle, Clean Water in spray bottle, soft bristle brush, and a shop vac.

Water then, simple green, and use the brush to even out the dirt LOL. Work in small 12"x12" areas Shop vac it out before it saturates the backer. Then 2x rinse.

Its a time consuming process but it gets 95% of the dirt out without being too agressive. Friend swears by Oxy Clean diluted in a spray bottle instead of Simple Green

 

[pagrunt]

I have used a Bissel Green Machine & their upholstery cleaner to clean mine. My Bissel was a unit they sold in the late '90's that used water as hot or cold as you made it. Shame it died a couple years back, great little machine for cleaning car upholstery.

 

[ed1948]

Similar methods as above to clean my grey velour seats.This is the same way I clean my house carpet.
-thoroughly dry vacuum
-fill a spray bottle with 2 tablespoons dish soap, a bit of white vinegar and the rest hot water(approx 1:30-40 ratio, try your own mixture - try a small area and rub with a sponge and look for foam forming)
-misted the whole seat base or seat back or side panels with soap mixture
-with a sponge worked the sudsy mixture in
-use a weed sprayer pump canister, fill with hot water and a bit of vinegar
-soak a square foot and immediately wet/dry vacuum, repeat and then slowly vacuum the area in all directions
-repeat until whole item is done(if this is the last pass spend time to vacuum the surface as dry as possible)
-empty vacuum and dump brown water
-repeat the above hot water rinse until you feel the water comes out clear enough

In my case it took 3 wet spray rinse passes until the rinse water came out fairly clear

I'll be doing the same procedure for the out of car carpet

 

[mr evil]

Hey thanks all!
So since I had some foam upholstery cleaner in the garage along with a bottle of Spot Shot I decided to try a small test spot with each. Neither seemed to do anything harmful so I went ahead and did the pull straps to see how clean I could get them.
Procedure went like this: applied product, gently scrubbed with a soft nylon fingernail brush and then blotted/gently wiped with a clean microfiber cloth until it wiped clean (no dirt transfer to cloth) The micro cloth seemed to kind of comb the velour as I wiped.
Now those pieces were a piece of cake, it's on to the upper panels and then the seats.
Before and after, this was with foam cleaner, Turtle Wax brand I think....I know, I try to stay away from that sh*t but I obviously bought some at some point. Maybe when I did the carpet.....anyways, quite a difference.


Ed, I had done a similar method to yours when I pulled the carpet from the donor car, however since the carpet was out and it was a nice day and hose was handy, I spared it no aggression with the soap scrub and rinse. Used the vacuum to get any residual out...

It came out pretty good save for the spots that were just plain wore out.....

The one thing I don't like about this 'Grey' is that it really comes of more like Powder Blue to me, particularly where it's sun faded....

 

[565bbchevy]

For many years one of my friends worked for a carpet cleaning business and he would clean interiors for me (seats, carpet and door panels) using their upholstery tools that they use for do chairs etc. and that worked well plus I only had to pay him with beer.
Since nowadays at most I might get a small spot of dirt and depending what it is from I use either Tuff Stuff all purpose cleaner or Goo Gone and just dab it with a new white terry cloth until it is clean

 

[Texas82GP]

I have had great success with pulling the carpet out of the car, taking it to the quarter carwash and hanging it up on the floor mat clamps and blasting it with the high pressure soapy water, then rinsing real well, then hanging on the fence in the sun to dry. I also cleaned carpet in a truck with a Rug Doctor that had an upholstery tool. It worked well but I was at it all day. The carpet was in bad shape. It saved it and I didn't have to pull it out of the truck.

 

[Ribbedroof]

I have had great success with pulling the carpet out of the car, taking it to the quarter carwash and hanging it up on the floor mat clamps and blasting it with the high pressure soapy water, then rinsing real well, then hanging on the fence in the sun to dry. I also cleaned carpet in a truck with a Rug Doctor that had an upholstery tool. It worked well but I was at it all day. The carpet was in bad shape. It saved it and I didn't have to pull it out of the truck.

Agreed, works great. If it's really dirty (daughter's jeep when we got it) I use the tire cleaner/presoak first