You’ve heard of those toxic radioactive isotopes with a half life of 10,000 years? Well new-car smell is the polar opposite – its half-life is 30 seconds after your family climbs inside.
Your reasons for wanting to tidy up your car’s interior can vary. Maybe you’re just a neat freak who has taken delivery of an old bomb for your child’s first car – and its uninhabitable state offends your sensibilities.
Perhaps you’re actually a slob, but smart enough to know that you’re not going to impress someone you romantically desire giving them a lift home in a car that looks like the battle of the Somme has been re-enacted inside it.
Or maybe you just want the car looking presentable for sale.
• A household duster
• A powerful vacuum cleaner with various attachments and extension lead
• An old toothbrush for hard-to-reach parts
• Soft, washable/reusable cloths
• Alcohol wipes
• Domestic glass cleaning solution
• Cleaning solution for automotive plastics from an aftermarket retail store
• Fabric cleaner for automotive applications
• Beeswax for leather treatment
• Safe working environment – powered-up garage or somewhere else out of the elements
With gravity as your friend, start from the top and work your way down. Dust first... with a household duster. Removing vast swathes of dust (using the duster) on the dashtop, the door cappings, centre console and other up-facing sections of plastic will prevent dirt and grime clogging up your cloths as quickly when you go back over these surfaces applying vinyl protectorant.
Remember to lower the sunvisors and dust them as well. White vinegar is recommended for the vinyl headlining (in older cars) and the moulds around the roof pillars to remove built-up tobacco smoke stains and odour. Use this sparingly, lest it drip on you while you’re seated in the car undertaking other cleaning tasks.
A household window cleaner will be fine to clean the glass. Spray the solution on the windows, windscreen and mirrors (vanity mirrors as well), and wipe off with a material that won’t leave streaks – old bunched-up newspapers are good for this. You may want to attack the outside of the windows and windscreen as well, so the glass is as near to perfectly clear as it can be, whether you’re standing outside the car looking in, or sitting in the car looking out.
Everything below a family car’s waistline has its own ‘smell of teen spirit’ about it.
You can kick off this part of the job by removing anything that is extraneous to the car’s day-to-day operation. That includes old drink bottles, shopping receipts, coins that have fallen out of pockets and purses, food scraps, kids’ toys, etc. Slide the front seats forward to the full extent and check behind for anything that has rolled or fallen underneath. Empty the ashtrays as well.
Leave nothing loose in the car except the owners manual, service booklet and receipts in the glovebox.
If you choose to start with the dash and centre fascia (the stack where the infotainment and climate control interfaces reside), spray the vinyl cleaning solution/protectorant on the larger areas in need of a little sheen – the dash top and door cappings, for instance. When applying the solution in tight spots, spray it on the cloth and use that to apply it.
Where dirt and gunk have collected in fixtures where it’s safe to use soapy water – such as the bottom of cupholders – remove any food or drink stains or spills (congealed coffee, soft drink, etc) with a soft cloth of the kitchen-wipe kind, one with an open weave to trap larger particles of dirt. This type of cleaning cloth is cheap, it can wash out in warm water, and once it’s beyond redemption you can dispose of it with the rest of the household garbage.
For the centre fascia and instrument binnacle, use some alcohol wipes, such as you can pick up in a supermarket for covid-19 disinfection of surfaces. Wipe over the controls and displays lightly, taking particular care with infotainment screens and digital instrument clusters. Any detritus around knobs and in other inaccessible spots, such as the grilles for the climate control vents or the striations of audio control knobs, can be prised out with the old toothbrush.
You can apply the vinyl protectorant where appropriate (not on the display screens, instruments and controls). That includes the dashboard, door cards, the centre fascia bezel and the centre console.
At this point, it’s time to swing into action with the vacuum cleaner to remove traces of the environment from your car. Remove the floor mats, if fitted. Beat these against a handy fence or wall to loosen the accumulated dirt or sand particles in the weave. Vacuum these outside the car.
Work your way around the car, starting with the driver’s position. Adjust the seat rearwards as far as it will go. Vacuum the seat itself, followed by the moulded carpet in the footwell. The loop pile often used in cars can be a mongrel when it comes to surrendering the grass seeds, burrs and tiny little grains of sand.
One hack we’ve seen in an online video relies on a cheap glass-cleaning squeegee with a rubber blade to loosen these particles and sweep them down into a heap where they’re easily vacuumed up. Apparently movement of the rubber blade creates a static electricity charge that magnetically draws the particles out of the pile.
Fit the vacuum’s crevice tool attachment to work on the carpet between the driver’s seat base and the door, and between the seat and the centre console. Shift the seatbelt buckle out of the way where necessary.
Adjust the driver’s seat forward as far as it will go and move to the rear seat directly behind it. Vacuum the seat and the footwell there as you’ve already done in the driving position. Remember to vacuum the rear of the driver’s seat as well. Move to the other passenger seats and repeat the vacuuming process.
After the vacuuming is complete, you can replace the floor mats in the car and start working on any ground-in/caked on stains in the seat fabric. A fabric stain remover from an aftermarket automotive accessory store is useful for this purpose. If you have leather upholstery, buying beeswax and a sponge is money well spent.
Attack the boot using the same method as you have in the car’s cabin. Remove anything rolling around there and vacuum the carpet. As a final act, lift the spare-wheel cover (if the car is fitted with a spare wheel, and wipe down the spare wheels and tools – plus anything else that looks like it needs cleaning.
And at that point you’re done, leaving yourself an opportunity to ingratiate yourself with someone lovely at the nightclub using the most under-utilised pick-up line of all time: “Come and see how clean my car is...”
Cleaning fluids and materials
Cloth, velour, corduroy and carpet in cars can be tough to keep clean. Here's how the cleverer car cleaners do it.
1. Coffee/chocolate spills: use cool tap water and a paper towel or clean rag to blot out. A five-minute soak with glass cleaner works on older or more stubborn stains
2. Grease: a paint thinner used with salt applied sparingly and then vacuumed when dried should do it, but test a small area first
3. Ink: hairspray or salt should absorb ink; then brush off
4. Vomit: we don't care how it got there, dilute with soda water or baking soda
5. Blood: treat immediately with laundry starch and cold water; allow it to dry before brushing or vacuuming away
6. Alcohol: dilute with cold water immediately if possible
7. Faeces: a mixture of hot water, dishwashing liquid and a cup of white vinegar; work in with a hard bristle brush, let it sit for half an hour and then blot with thick cloth or rags
8. Faded with age and grime: half a cup of ammonia in 600ml of water should brighten old carpet, but test first in an out-of-the-way corner and don't use on pure wool carpet
9. Frayed carpet: liquid resin helps to keep strands and fibres in place
10. Carpet indentations: place a damp cloth over affected area and then place a low-heat iron on it for only a moment