The short version: I gave a friend a ride to pick up his car last week. He brought a Sprite along. He opened it, it spewed. Most of it got sopped up / cleaned up quickly, but there's a bit of it left on the [cloth] passenger's seat now.

What do you use for cleaning car seats and other in-vehicle fabrics?

Thanks, SF.

Chemical Guys!!!!!
Works great in the car and does great on the carpet when the kids puke in the house.
Chemical Guys SPI_191 Lightning Fast Carpet and Upholstery Stain Extractor, 1 Gal https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0..._encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Detail Geek suggests a 20:1 mix of Chemical Guys Lightning spray and hot water, in a sprayer, using a drill mounted brush and a handheld carpet cleaner. I've not done it myself but I have seen the amazing results he gets on his youtube channel.

But then I don't do my own detail work. At least, not at the moment. Once I get my back sorted I'll be back to all sorts of shenanigans like this.

Rug Doctor with a hand held attachment (if such thing exists)

Pump up sprayer with hot dawn soap and water mix.

Pump up sprayer with plain hot water.

Shop vac with filter removed.

Spray with soapy water and shop vac out, repeat several times then finish with the plain water and vacuum... several applications.

I'd do the whole cushion so it gets cleaned uniformly.

Air dry.

I can think of a dozen good products you could use to clean the fabric, but the key is to extract whatever you apply to the fabric and then get it to dry completely. I have a Bissel Little Green Clean Machine I use to try and suck up whatever I apply to the surface of cloth seats.

quote:

Originally posted by shiftyvtec:
Pump up sprayer with hot dawn soap and water mix.

I'd be very careful using Dawn Dish Soap for any fabric cleaning. Dawn is incredibly harsh and can discolor some fabrics.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
What do you use for cleaning car seats ...

My detailers

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
What do you use for cleaning car seats ...

My detailers

50/50 warm water and white vinegar. Pour it on and use a wet vac to pull it up. Do it several times and if you don't like the smell of vinegar (which will go away on its own) you can rinse it with water to dissipate the smell faster.

I have a friend who owns a professional carpet cleaning business. He only breaks out the industrial chemicals for the really tough stains/smells. Everything else gets the aforementioned with a shampoo afterwards to make it smell nice.

Tuff stuff. It's a spray can and foam.....spray on the spot, let sit a while, scrub with a wet rag

Bissell little green machine and upholstery cleaner. If you don't have one. Sprayer bottle with diluted upholstery cleaner in same proportions you'd use with steam cleaner and shop vac.

Since it's just Sprite if it's fresh I'd cut cleaner in half or use pure water.

If you were in the central Florida area, I would give you a bottle of my cleaner, and lend you one of my machines:

"put some Windex on it"


It's actually what I use and then suck it out with a wet/dry vac. It's Sprite so the stain won't keep coming up like a darker liquid would

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Tuff stuff. It's a spray can and foam.....spray on the spot, let sit a while, scrub with a wet rag

Yep, works great.

Thank you all for your suggestions, and

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
If you were in the central Florida area, I would give you a bottle of my cleaner, and lend you one of my machines:

thank you for your generosity.

It looks like tomorrow earns me some garage time and a bit of scrubbing. I'm sure I can do the water/vinegar/shop vac bit readily, and the Chemical Guys goods look like a good Plan B.

I'm curious about this Little Green Machine, too....

I’m a fan of warm water and a shop vac. Lots of warm water if need be. Owning a convertible subjected to a few serious rain drenchings cured me of fearing water. This of course not going to work on oil based problems. I’ve resorted to a mild laundry detergent and water solution on carpet soil and stains, experimented on the floor mats first. Followed up with plenty of warm water and shop vac.

I don't spill often (once in 5.5 years) and don't have kids so I don't have much hands on vehicle experience. However, I had a cat with kidney disease which caused vomiting so I had gotten pretty good at shampooing stuff inside my house (e.g. fabric couches, area rugs, etc).

My one spill vehicle spill was the bright orange Chick-fil-A buffalo dipping sauce on light gray carpet. The process I used:

I dabbed up as much dipping sauce as possible

I saturated area with spot carpet cleaner (I had some Bissell brand but tons of reputable brands would work)

While the stain was soaking, I filled my Bissell spot shampooer with hot water only (i.e. zero cleaning solution)

used a soft drill brush on stain

used Bissell while spraying with hot water until white pretreatment not visible in clear extractor

switched to extracting w/o water in cross hatch pattern until no more water came out.

It was perfectly clean when I finished. One of the risks of cleaning is that the cleaning solution residue will wick up later and leave an outline stain around the area. That didn't happen with the above technique, and you can't even tell I had ever spilled the bright orange dipping sauce in my truck.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

I have found this stuff to work very well.

What ever you use, follow up with a treatment of Scotchguard. I treated the cloth seats in my Tacoma shortly after buying it and I'm amazed that no matter what I've spilled on them it comes right off with plain water or for difficult stains some 409 or similar cleaner. I'll be home shampooing this spring and reapplying Scotchgard.. probably several coats on the driver's seat.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
Thank you all for your suggestions, and

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
If you were in the central Florida area, I would give you a bottle of my cleaner, and lend you one of my machines:

thank you for your generosity.

It looks like tomorrow earns me some garage time and a bit of scrubbing. I'm sure I can do the water/vinegar/shop vac bit readily, and the Chemical Guys goods look like a good Plan B.

I'm curious about this Little Green Machine, too....

Walmart link for Lil green machine.

It's a cheap steam cleaner, $90 for non heated unit $140 for one with heat. I use mine very infrequently it's a little older model. Works for small spots that don't require deep, deep cleaning. On my older model the important thing was to leave water tanks open until completely dry to avoid mold. For infrequent/light use, it works pretty well.