Car Detailing - Seats and Carpets

Michael: Hi, I am Michael, Pro Clean of Tysons Corner, Virginia, Automotive Cleaning Specialist for 25 years. Today, we are going to teach you how to detail a car. Weve already put a good coat of wax on the car, now we are going to do the interior, the leather, the carpets, the dashboards and things like that. Here are the things we need to get started. Good pair of gloves, very, very soft brush, towel, and a very heavy brush for the carpet, leather cleaner, we are using McGuires today, you can buy any major brand, theyre all the same and a nice clean towel.

Okay. Let's get started on the carpets first, let's get our gloves on here. Get your cleaner, any type of carpet cleaner you can use is a like 409, Fantastic or something, dilute it 50-50, thats where you can start with it. That should be enough, put yourself a towel on the ground, so you get kneeled on it and just give yourself a good spraying. You dont have to saturate the carpet, just get a good coat of cleaner across it. Take your brush, usually has a handle on it.

Now, that youve got a good scrubbing on there, obviously if you have harder spots that need to be cleaned in, you need to do it again, use a little more chemical. Now, we will go to the shaft back here. Shaft back will be used as an extractor like most of the time you just take the filter out of it, use an extractor and also want it. You dont have to buy expensive $900 equipment and stuff, and you can use any common shaft from any cleaner.

Flip it on. Suck up any excess detergent and cleaner thats on there and it comes clean, as it is right there. Pay attention more to the sides over here, where your feet hit up against it, you want to double check the side panels here, make sure those are clean, if you have to, take a rag, take your cleaner again, spray the sides down a little bit and just give them a good second wipe down like that. Usually they are the dirtiest because obviously your shoes hit them all the time, thats pretty much with the carpet. When you do the floor mat, you do it the same exact same way. Its a lot easier, because its out of the vehicle and you can hold it down, they are a lot easier to clean when they are out of the vehicle. Now, we are going to go to cleaning the leather. Lets get the McGuires leather cleaner here. Again, you can use any of the top named brands, give it a good shake in, always shake it up because it has oils in it, they are going to settle. Get your rags, put a little on the rag and what we want to do is we want to spot -- do a spot section, before we do anything.

Always do a spot section, before you do any part of thing. Take the edge here, take your cream, thats basically what it is, its cream, it just do a good cleaning on edge right here and you will see the dirt that comes off from this cleaner. Just wipe it off, and there you have got cleaned and its healthy leather. Its been conditioned and everything and you are ready to go.

If you have that little bit, if its a little dirtier and it needs to be cleaned first, get your very soft brush, very, very soft brush, you can take a little bit of your cleaner, that you were using before thats been diluted at least 50%. Spray a little on the brush and you can go over the section, very lightly like that, and pull off whatever is in the seats and the cracks like that.

Once, you are done with that, then comeback over with your conditioner and cleaner and feed the leather and get the leather backup again and everything, then you have got a clean, nice clean leather seats.

The door panels, same exact same thing, on this one especially, this is nice leather on here, you want to use the leather cleaner, squirt it out on the thing, rub it in, clean it up, inside these gauges and the buttons and everything in here, take your soft brush, wipe that chemical off that you sprayed on there before and just give it a nice little soft. They are very soft, very, very soft brush. Give it a nice cleaning inside all the cracks and crevices like that. Wipe it down, all inside everything, just go wherever are they.

When you find something, usually like the handles around here, they are a little more dirty because thats where your hand hits, down here where your foot hits, you have to go over it again. Take a little more cleaner, spray it on your rag, again make sure its diluted, and give it a good wipe down like that. Thats basically, getting the carpets and the leather done.

So, now let's go on to the dashboard.