Does your car have a musty odor? Just a little bit old? Just bought it and it smells like stale cigarettes and coffee? Here is how to do a detail that will make it like new!

Estimated Time: Good afternoon
Tools: Random sockets, rug scrubber, screwdriver (flathead)
Products: Bleach (can be substituted for high strength cleaner like austins upholstery cleaner), Laundry Deturgent, Dash protectant.


This detail is going to be a LONG detail, expect to spend a good day on it, but it will be worth it in the end.

1. Lets start by removing the seats. Push the seats all the way back and remove the bolts from the rails. Push the seat forward and it will be the same thing. Be careful not to rip the seatbelt cords under the drivers side seat, disconect the harness and your good to go.

2. Remove plastics (arm rest, ebrake, plastics around shifter, cup holders)


now that you have a semi gutted interior, here is how we are going to start., get your rug srubber, make sure it has the hand attatchments. i went to giant eagle and theirs had a super long handle and a wide mouth so i went to lows and got a rug doctor rental for 20 bux a day. not bad seeing as you get like 10 bux back, so it eaqualed out to 10 bux.

Mix your solution. First need to be hit hard, assuming you already vacumed your car, your going to want to get up as much dirt and stains as possible right? Make a high-strength formula out of stuff you have to do that. This is where you get to play mad scientist i found that 2 cap fulls of bleach + 1 cup of laundry detergent worked great. mix the two with a couple cups of water so its deluted and mixxed together (so it dosent stain your carpet) and then put it in the scrubber. Then fill the scrubber with water. soak your carpets in the solution, you can even take a scub brush to it if you want. I would let it soak in for a few minutes, grab a beer or a smoke and come back to it. then brush again.

Now its time to suck it up, use the scrubber to suck up as much of the solution as possable. dump the dirty water out of the scrubber and dump any remaining solution out aswell. now just get water and a good smelling laundry deturgent and repeat it again. this will get anything you left behind and this will also be the "new car" smell haha.

Do the following to your seats, front and back

***WARNING*** DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS TO YOUR HEADLINER: headliners use a water solvent glue that will basicly disapear if its submerged. Not to mention the suction from the hose will pull it down, i tryed it in a small area and it started sagging almost instantly. if you want to clean your headliner, take it off, remove fabric, scrape foam off, use new foam and re-wrap with new material!

now you have clean carpets and seats, clean ALL plastics in the car. you can take the vents out of the dash and clean inside them, trust me, the vents get mad dusty under the dash, just take a loooong duster to it, shove it down and pull it up and be amazed how much is down there. this will also help you if you have allergies!

now use a plastic protectant with UV blocking, this will help keep it looking new, longer!. i use armor all but alot of people say it will crack your dash. Another great product out there is mothers.

Treat your windows with anti-fog if you live where its cold, and clean all glass in the car.

re-install seats and plastics

return your rug-scrubber on time and your good to go!

Im sure i missed ALOT of different things you can do, and there is always a better product somewhere else. if you have any suggestions, post a comment, if you did this, tell us how it turned out! know how to do something cool? Post a DIY!

 

Oxy clean or generic equilivalent also works well for the seats/carpet. I've gotten some serious stains out with that stuff without removing fabric from seats.

 

i never had luck with oxy clean, but austins upholstery cleaner is powerful ish, it works good

 

My old del Sol seats had a musty smell (got wet from leaky roof seals) and a lot of Febreze Auto did the job for me (over the course of a few weeks). This would probably not help with cigarette odor though.

 

For your dash, If you use Mothers Protectant it shines and smells better the armor-all, and lasts longer. If you have a light colored dash, and in the leather design (the little lines and crud) you see black, or brown crud, if you get a good degreaser, i use IDX20 i think its called, and a NAIL cleaning brush, you know the ones you scrub your nails with to get oil and grease out of them. Combine them, and HOLY COW can you make stuff look good, i was a "Professional" Detailer for a company called Geotch Drilling, and i did all of their trucks... man... were they dirty, this stuff works GREAT even on stains in your seats. Although it does not smell very good, and ***********DO NOT********
get it on Glass, if you do clean it off before it dry's with an Ammonia Based Cleaner. But other then that its great, use some paper towel to clean it up before it dry's, then when its all done go over it with the Mothers Protectant, and dont get that on glass either XD and those two things on your dash will make a WORLD of difference, With that combined with the carpet cleaning Super said to do, your car will look, and smell great. Plus Mothers works GREAT on tires and plastic on the outside of your car too, even under the hood, like on your Cruise control Module, just keeps things shiny. And makes it alot nicer to clean the second time around.

P.S. Good write up Super, and heres a list of all you really need to keep the interior and parts of your exterior clean and beautiful,

A good Degreaser, like i said i use IDX20 (pretty sure thats what its called, its late and i dont want to go to my shop to check it) i get it at a place Called Chieftain here in town...

Nail Brush: Like i said, the things you use to clean under your nails

Paper Towel: Pretty self explanatory...

Mothers Protectant: (best stuff ever, used it on TONNES of things)

Gunk Foaming Glass Cleaner: (i find it works really well on glass, once you do your wiping, if you go over one more time with a new piece of paper towel, after it looks kinda dry, and wipe hard, you should have Zero streaks)

No Touch Tire Cleaner: Works WONDERS on tires, not super shiny, but you dont need clean tires to use it, just spray it on, and let it dry itself.

Rim Clean By Turtle Wax: If you have never heard of this stuff... its AMAZING, i have had TONNES of luck with this, i have even removed rust off of a rim before, it Shines Aluminum rims like no freakin tomorrow. But DO NOT USE ON PAINTED RIMS OR SURFACES, only on Aluminum really, but it works great.


And then of Course what has been said by Super, i have not cleaned Carpets yet... really... done lots of vacuuming and using my Degreaser on stains, but thats it.

Have fun, and a clean car : D

 

Thats a good idea with the degreaser to the dash. that will also help take off any previous layers of protectant you have so your dash will be clean and shiney like new! thanks for the extra added info largen!

 

Oh yeah, the previous owner of my car was a heavy smoker and all plastics were coated in cig gunk. Degreaser worked like a charm on that. It was the only thing I found that would clean that crap off easily. For the smell, a combination of baking soda left in a bowl, citrus peels, and fabreeze auto got rid of the smell. Everything was sprayed with lysol disinfectant prior to this. At some point, you'll also want to leave the windows cracked over a couple of nights. As for the smell in the air conditioning, you just need to ride around with the windows down at reasonable speed and blast the ac and heat (change it up) to get rid of that.

 

NP
Your totally right with the previous layers of protectant as well.
like i said... i had to clean some DIRTY trucks ha ha you learn some good stuff from that.