How To: Wash A Car’s Interior
Once you’ve cleaned the exterior of your car (see How To: Wash A Car’s Exterior) its time to move inside and get the interior looking like new. Over the years, I’ve picked up several tricks of the professional car detailing business that will bring your car back to showroom quality. Before anything, treat yourself to a Saturday morning trip to Home Depot and pick up the following:
| Satisfactory | Optimal |
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If you are neurotic, have multiple cars to wash on a regular basis, or simply insist on the best, don’t settle for anything less than the “optimal list”… you won’t regret it. These are the products that I use regularly and are the same found in any professional detailing shop. If the beer budget already cut into the car budget this month, the “satisfactory list” will certainly cost a lot less and will still get your car in great shape.
Step One: The Prep
Much like prepping the outside of your car, the prep stage for the inside is just as important. To do this spray down the dash, doors, door jams, and all other plastic/vinyl surfaces (not leather) with a generous amount of window or glass cleaner. This is not a typo. I have long preferred window cleaner to interior cleaner because it is quick drying and effectively cleans. Take a clean terry cloth and scrub down all of the parts that you just wet paying special attention to any spots where there are stains or rubs. If you have any spots that aren’t coming out from shoe soles, scrapes, etc, I suggest using a product called “Goof Off.” It is an ethanol based remover and is safe for most vinyl and plastic. It works great if you have anything stubborn. During step one, pay special attention to: cup holders, in door map holders, door jams.
Step Two: Crevice Cleaning
Everyone’s a winner with clean crevices! On all interiors there are plenty of seams that become homes to dirt, sand, coffee spills, etc. Locate all of those spots and soak them with your window cleaner. Then get out your tooth brush and scrub them clean. It is important to use a soft bristled brush because it won’t scratch the surrounding surface. If you have compressed air or an air gun, they work 100x better at blasting away the grime and are much faster at doing it. Pay special attention to: the consoles, door handles, cup holders. Once you have blasted (or scrubbed) it all away, make sure you clean the surrounding surfaces so that you can make sure you didn’t transfer dirt from a crevice to a surface.
Step Three: Protect It All
Get out your terry applicator and spray it down evenly with protectant. If you bought the cheap stuff don’t use too much because it will likely be greasy after you apply it. The grease acts like a magnet for dust and dirt and you will be back doing this again next week. If you use the good stuff it is usually very thin so you will likely have to spray more. If there is one thing you shouldn’t go cheap on it is good protectant. In many regards there isn’t a lot of difference between a $30 bottle of wax and a $6 bottle. When it comes to protectant its kinda like Scotch- go with the good stuff and you won’t be dissapointed.
As you apply the protectant, use your cardboard box piece to act as a divider between the dash and windshield. It’s really, really hard to get off of windows, which is why you often see “oil” spots on the bottom of windshields. Apply it evenly as you are able. Once you are finished, get out yet another terry cloth towel and wipe it all down. This will ensure you don’t have any spots that are higher concentrated than others, which would create the camouflage look with a week in the sun.
Step Four: Glass
There is no real art form to wiping down glass other than it should be done after you protect the dash and doors. Just make sure you get the corners otherwise they will stand out like a 180 lb stripper. Again, I really like auto glass cleaner versus Windex. It dries faster and is much more forgiving with streaks.
Step Five: Seats
Cloth-If you have cloth seats you have a bit of a process ahead of you so bite the bullet and make the most of it… grab a couple fresh cold ones, throw in some Zeppelin and lose yourself in the garage for the day. You’ll be happy to know a clean minivan interior offers the same marital benefits as a dozen roses. First things first; vacuum the seats thoroughly. There is nothing worse than getting out the scrub bucket and scrubbing in a piece of a Snickers bar that little Billy dropped on the seat.
Next, fill a bucket of water as hot as you can make it. I actually knew a detailer who put the water in the microwave before doing an interior. The reason for this is that we are going to be using laundry detergent to do this process. In your washing machine the detergent has time/heat to make it work. In the car with a brush the heat only lasts for a short while.
Mix a healthy quantity of detergent into your water. We’re not making paste, but I would put as much detergent into a bucket of water as you would put into a full load of laundry. Stir. If the water is hot it will dissolve quickly. Take your hard bristled brush and start scrubbing away. It works best if you go in one uniform direction and then reverse and do the perpendicular direction. You will see the stains start to melt away. Don’t be afraid to get the seats wet (not soaking). It’s only laundry detergent. When you are finished with each seat, either flip on the wet/dry vac and suck up the excess, or use a clean terry cloth towel and rib vigorously to pick up the excess soap/water/dirt. You will be amazed at how your once white towels will turn grey. If you spill any water on plastic, be sure to wipe it up. Otherwise it will leave an ugly white water trail. It’s a good idea to keep all of the doors open so that what you weren’t able to dry the air will.
Leather- Leather seats are much easier than cloth. Vacuuming is still important, but the biggest step is cleaning. If you have light leather this is especially important. A good leather cleaner (Lexol is the only one I will use) is worth its weight in gold. Spray it on a terry cloth and scrub away. There are a few stains that I have found that just won’t come out of leather. They are: wine (don’t ask me why someone spilled wine in their car) and cigarette smoke residue. Everything else, coffee included, shouldn’t be an issue.
Once you have cleaned them and dried them, immediately use a terry applicator and start conditioning them. When you clean the leather you will agitate it and open it up to being more absorbent to the conditioner. Spend some time with the conditioner rubbing it into the leather. Well maintained leather will soak it up with no problem. On an important note, after you condition the leather in the car, I don’t suggest sitting in the seats for about 8 hours. It will give the conditioner time to settle in and you won’t get it all over your clothing. If you are finished and the seats look wet you either used too much or didn’t rub enough. A terry cloth towel should do the trick to take any excess off of the surface.
Step Six: Carpet / Floor mats
Now you should have an interior that looks great with a dirty floor and dirty floor mats. First things first. Thoroughly vacuum the inside of the car using a crevice tool if possible to get in between the front seats and console as well as the seats and door jams. The more you vacuum the better the carpet cleaning will turn out. Make sure you take the floor mats out of the car.
Next, either prepare water and detergent as described in Step Five: Seats (Cloth) or use the same mixture. Get out your hard bristled brush and dip and scrub. It’s important that the water for this step not be scalding as many manufacturers over dye the floor carpet and floor mats so that it doesn’t discolor as easily. A hit of resolve should take out some of the bigger stains that won’t come out with the brush. Once you are finished hit it with another terry towel or use a wet/dry vac. This is the part where the wet/dry vac comes in really handy.
When you are done with the carpet, you now have some floor mats to take care of. Lay them out of the driveway and make sure they are fully vacuumed. Get out the hose and just soak the hell out of them. Then take your brush and soap and scrub. Soak them again. Then it is of the highest importance that you hang dry them in the shade (of course sucking up as much excess water as you can first). The biggest mistake I ever made was sun drying black floor mats for a client. They became grey floor mats and the client was not too happy about it.
Wrapping It All Up
Now that you have a pristine car, it is a good idea to let it air dry. I would leave all the doors open and let the wind blow through. Rolling down the windows will likely result in you rewashing the windows because the water from your car wash that got caught in the window jam will streak onto them. If you did your leather seats this is especially important… they will benefit from some breathing air. As a final touch I like to take some McGuire’s Back To Black and wipe the door jams and plastic with it. Makes the plastic look new and there is something about a car with clean door jams. Perhaps I’m that neurotic. Done right with all steps included, a car wash should take about an hour (Led Zeppelin II if the Hen is nagging you) and up to three hours (atleast a 6er beers and the entire Zeppeling Box Set if you’ve got the day to yourself).
Still want more? Check out next week’s post “How to Wash a Car: Waxing.”
Be A Man
-The Founding Father
