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Our new Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner, introduced at SEMA last year, can be considered an evolution of our former Quik Out Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner (now discontinued), which was pretty terrific stuff. The new Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner (G9719, $5.99 MSRP) comes as an aerosol with a two stage sprayer. Pull the trigger half way and it sprays a fine stream for hitting smaller spots; pull the trigger all the way and the spray fans out to cover larger areas.
We wanted to show you what this product can really do, so we selected a 2000 model year BMW that has been, well, less than pampered. With a tan interior and plenty of stains, we had our pick of issues to demonstrate this product on, from carpets to floor mats to the head liner. This particular car has vinyl seats, but once you see how well this product worked on the other surfaces, and the techniques we used to achieve the results, we're confident that you'll get similar results on cloth seats as well.
First, the floor mat. While these are not original to the car, they are light colored and quite dirty. Not just stained in areas, but just plain dirty over all.
We sprayed the product liberally onto the surface and allowed it to dwell for a couple of minutes. We then agitated with a carpet brush, and followed with a clean, dry towel to blot up the any residue. This is not a really wet process anyway so there isn't a lot of drying time needed here. We did do a couple of applications to ensure thorough and uniform cleaning.
In the image below we had cleaned only the right side of the mat, leaving the right side with stains and general dirt to show the difference.
Of course we couldn't leave it like that so we did the rest of the mat, too.
The factory carpet had a really nasty stain right behind the center console that had been there for years.
Again, spray, let dwell, brush with a stiff carpet brush, finish with a clean towel. We did this three times on this stain due to its age and generally nastiness.
Now for the area that can be really tricky - the headliner. While this light colored headliner had some noticeable stains (again, they've been there for years) it was also just generally dirty and dingy.
There were also some isolated stains like this one near the grab handle.
Headliner material tends to be a bit on the delicate side so you don't want to brush it with a stiff brush. In some cases even a fairly soft brush can pull up the material so you need to move slowly here. Since most headliners are glued in place it's also important to not soak the material as that can lead to a break down of the adhesive and subsequent sagging of the headliner. So try this process:
Using the same stiff carpet brush we used on the floor mat and factory carpeting, we wrap it in a microfiber towel and then spray the Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner directly onto the towel rather than onto the headliner.
With the microfiber towel wrapped around the brush, the stiff bristles give firm backing to the towel, which helps with uniform cleaning of the surface.
Product is sprayed directly onto the towel rather than the headliner.
From here, the product is applied in straight line motions with moderate pressure, using the towel wrapped carpet brush. Take your time here and let the product and towel do the work - don't use a lot of pressure, and don't go in circles. Here's a 50/50 shot of the towel to show what we pulled out of the headliner with this process. The right side is the area that was supported by the brush bristles and sprayed with Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner and now holds the dirt that was in the headliner. The left side of the towel is still clean.
And the headliner itself - same area as the "before" shot above, but with just the left side cleaned using straight line back and forth motions. You can see that it's lighter than the right side, which still has some smaller stains left in it as well.
We did the same process with the spot next to the grab handle shown above, and now the stain is gone.
To recap: with proper tools and techniques, and a little patience (let the product dwell for a couple of minutes, and don't rush the process by scrubbing vigorously on the headliner) you can get some pretty dramatic results even on older stains using our Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner. Generic carpet brushes come in all shapes and sizes, so find one that's got a good flat surface to the bristles and enough of a footprint to give you good coverage. Stick with clean, dry microfiber towels and don't over saturate that headliner! Carpets and floor mats are far more forgiving in this regard, so you can spray quite liberally onto them and allow the product to dwell a bit and then scrub away. Everything should be almost totally dry to the touch in several minutes and that final wiping with a clean towel ensures no residue is left behind.
We wanted to show you what this product can really do, so we selected a 2000 model year BMW that has been, well, less than pampered. With a tan interior and plenty of stains, we had our pick of issues to demonstrate this product on, from carpets to floor mats to the head liner. This particular car has vinyl seats, but once you see how well this product worked on the other surfaces, and the techniques we used to achieve the results, we're confident that you'll get similar results on cloth seats as well.
First, the floor mat. While these are not original to the car, they are light colored and quite dirty. Not just stained in areas, but just plain dirty over all.
We sprayed the product liberally onto the surface and allowed it to dwell for a couple of minutes. We then agitated with a carpet brush, and followed with a clean, dry towel to blot up the any residue. This is not a really wet process anyway so there isn't a lot of drying time needed here. We did do a couple of applications to ensure thorough and uniform cleaning.
In the image below we had cleaned only the right side of the mat, leaving the right side with stains and general dirt to show the difference.
Of course we couldn't leave it like that so we did the rest of the mat, too.
The factory carpet had a really nasty stain right behind the center console that had been there for years.
Again, spray, let dwell, brush with a stiff carpet brush, finish with a clean towel. We did this three times on this stain due to its age and generally nastiness.
Now for the area that can be really tricky - the headliner. While this light colored headliner had some noticeable stains (again, they've been there for years) it was also just generally dirty and dingy.
There were also some isolated stains like this one near the grab handle.
Headliner material tends to be a bit on the delicate side so you don't want to brush it with a stiff brush. In some cases even a fairly soft brush can pull up the material so you need to move slowly here. Since most headliners are glued in place it's also important to not soak the material as that can lead to a break down of the adhesive and subsequent sagging of the headliner. So try this process:
Using the same stiff carpet brush we used on the floor mat and factory carpeting, we wrap it in a microfiber towel and then spray the Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner directly onto the towel rather than onto the headliner.
With the microfiber towel wrapped around the brush, the stiff bristles give firm backing to the towel, which helps with uniform cleaning of the surface.
Product is sprayed directly onto the towel rather than the headliner.
From here, the product is applied in straight line motions with moderate pressure, using the towel wrapped carpet brush. Take your time here and let the product and towel do the work - don't use a lot of pressure, and don't go in circles. Here's a 50/50 shot of the towel to show what we pulled out of the headliner with this process. The right side is the area that was supported by the brush bristles and sprayed with Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner and now holds the dirt that was in the headliner. The left side of the towel is still clean.
And the headliner itself - same area as the "before" shot above, but with just the left side cleaned using straight line back and forth motions. You can see that it's lighter than the right side, which still has some smaller stains left in it as well.
We did the same process with the spot next to the grab handle shown above, and now the stain is gone.
To recap: with proper tools and techniques, and a little patience (let the product dwell for a couple of minutes, and don't rush the process by scrubbing vigorously on the headliner) you can get some pretty dramatic results even on older stains using our Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner. Generic carpet brushes come in all shapes and sizes, so find one that's got a good flat surface to the bristles and enough of a footprint to give you good coverage. Stick with clean, dry microfiber towels and don't over saturate that headliner! Carpets and floor mats are far more forgiving in this regard, so you can spray quite liberally onto them and allow the product to dwell a bit and then scrub away. Everything should be almost totally dry to the touch in several minutes and that final wiping with a clean towel ensures no residue is left behind.
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