Hey guys, first thread of mine here in the Detailing section. I am not a professional detailer, and to be honest, not a very good hobbyist either! But I do enjoy detailing cars and the work I do is generally more thorough than what my friends accomplish on the weekends.

Today's project is the carpets and mats of a 1998 Chrysler Sebring convertible which has probably never even seen a vacuum before. I'm sorry I didn't get better pictures, I didn't even think about posting the results until much later. I only got one before shot (driver side) and one after shot (passenger side), all taken with a camera phone. But both sides had 10 years of dirt, cigarette ash, coffee, and whatever else you can imagine ingrained into them. This process did a very well for me, but I'm sure different chemicals or a professional extractor would have done a better job (if not, at least a faster job). But the Little Green Machine was less than $70 at Walmart and I found everything else at Home Depot.

Before:




Yeah...that is what was UNDER the floor mats! I did the same process on the mats and on the actual carpet of the car. Here are the products I used on the carpets (we at Suncoast have no affiliaton with any of the following companies, or sell any of their products. I'm not sure if any of the 6speed sponsors carry any of them either, but they're what I used, so there it is!).

1:10 Woolite/hot water mixed in a spray bottle
Folex Carpet Stain Remover in the spray bottle
cheap stiff bristled brush (shoe brush sized)
Bissell Little Green Machine Carpet Cleaner
some 10 year old Black N Decker Dust Buster (I started out with the Dyson Root, but the 6 minute battery life sucks and I don't have a shop vac)


The procedure went as follows. I worked on the mats first, and completely cleaned them one at a time. I used the brush to loosen up any dirt in the mat that the vacuum could pick up and dust busted it until most of the dirt and sand particles were gone. Then I completely soaked the mat in the Woolite mixture and hit up the really bad spots with a liberal amount of the Folex carpet stain remover (that stuff is amazing!!). I let it soak in for a few minutes to let the liquid really soak in, then went back to work with the brush to really agitate the fibers.

The Little Green Machine really only got used as an extractor at this point, because the clean reservoir only got filled with hot water. I did a couple passes with the LGM, sprayed with hot water, extracted, and one more rinse and extraction. I then placed the mats outside to complete drying (the LGM did a pretty good job removing most of the liquid from the carpet).

Same thing in the car itself. I removed the front seats and cleaned the carpets one quadrant at a time. I had to repeat the whole process and go over both of the front sides about 3 times before I stopped pulling up black water.

I got to dump this out about 5 times:




After all was said and done, this was the end product:





Not 100%, but much improved if I do say so myself! It only took about 2-3 hours (or about a 6 pack's worth of beer) to finish. It turned out well enough where I had other friends call me and request that I clean their interiors as well! Maybe I'll blow this pop stand and set up shop

Excuse typos and grammatical errors, I didn't really proofread. Comments and criticisms?

 

i think it looks very good.

 

Heck I would have dumped a quart of hot soapy water in the footwell, used a good nylon brush and Shop-Vack'ed it out! They must have come a long way because the last one I had wasn't worth a hill o' beans....

 

Honestly, it did a way better job than I thought that it would. I bought the thing to clean up after the puppy. I would never recommend this to anyone who is doing detailing in any kind of volume, but to the weekend warriors who are just doing their cars it is a pretty handy little piece that stores away on a shelf.

 

Steve,

That is a big improvment by anyone's standard. The only problem with extractors is the amount of water that get forced into the foam under the carpet, now you have a potential mildew issue. Vapor steam is the way to go, you emulsify the crud and the particular cleaner you use can work more easily to remove not mask the problem.

 

For the DIYer, I think Autoglym Interior Cleaner is the way to go. It cleans very well, no need for special tools, cost effective.

 

Would you expect a similar result?

What is the process?

 

OK, so maybe dumping water into the footwell isn't the way to go! What do I know....