When was the last time your car’s interior had a thorough interior cleaning? When I ask that question to people who are interested in our interior cleaning services, they always say, “It’s never had one.”
This basically means we’re going to have to pull out the strong machines since the car hasn’t ever been thoroughly cleaned.
So if you’re going to think about cleaning your car’s interior, one of the better options you can choose is an extractor. There’s dozens and dozens of choices on the market, so it’s going to depend on personal preference, expectations, and budget in which the extractor you’ll buy.
Step 1: Vacuum
Before you can start to suck up all the nasty gunk with your extractor, the very first thing you’re going to need to do is to make sure there are no loose debris or dirt on the seat. If your extractor is not meant for sucking up anything but water, it can cause it some serious damage overtime.
Vacuum the flat surfaces, but also all the nooks and crannies that are often overlooked. Use your hands to pull back the seams of the seats so you can make sure you get all the tiny gunk and dirt .
Step 2: Spot Clean
Depending on the extractor that you buy, the power will vary in strength. Nonetheless, even if you have a super strong one or a not-as-strong one, you should always spot clean in your seats.
This means if there’s a singular or several singular spots on the seats that are stains or marks, you should clean those specific areas (not entirely perfect, of course) to make it easier for you when you’re extracting the seats.
For spot cleaning, you’ll need an all purpose cleaner (APC), a small brush, and a towel. That should be enough as you’re only going to be spot cleaning.
Step 3: Extract
Now that you’ve got the heavy debris out of the way by vacuuming it and the spots are taken care of, now you can use your extractor to get all the gunk out of the seats.
As a side note, there are some extractors that have a see-through vacuum attachment that will allow you to see what you’re pulling up. So when you’re using the extractor, the water will go from white to dark black and brown as that’s all the gunk that you’re pulling up from the seat.
You’re going to start from the top of the seats, the head bolster, and work your way down. That way you’re not going to work over yourself. You’ll want to do even strokes with quick passes. On the heavier parts that are dirty, you can slow your speed to give the water enough time to break down the soil and suck it up.
You can also spray all purpose cleaner as you’re going along if you think it’s needed. It’ll help with the extraction as it will break down some of the simply simple stains and such.
Step 4: Mop Up
Since you’re putting water into the seat, the seat is going to stay wet for a couple hours. So to make it spend less time, you should use a dry towel and mop up as much water reside on the seats as possible. You’ll probably have to use several towels depending on the type of seats that you have, how much water you used, and the type of material the seat is.
Another great step you can take is to set some small fans to help the drying process faster.