Need some help cleaning our 2016 Kia Sedona minivan interior with cloth seats. Many many fast food meals, snacks, and milk cups have been spilled on these seats and they are hammered.
Yesterday my wife bought a Bissell Little Green Machine and I want to clean the seats and carpets. What's your preferred cleaning solution and/or method for getting the stains out? Watching the reels/stories on cleaning nasty seats makes it look easy but in practice the seats look the same after I clean them.
Anything else I'm missing here?
Some previous chatter from me in this thread.
The key to me seems to be more water than seem initially reasonable.
Others have pulled the seats and power washed directly to the cloth.
In reply to John Welsh :
I was tempted to just PM you since I know you preach the gospel of the LGM. So thanks for the input.
I'm not quite ready to power wash the seats but I'm damn close to that since these are that bad. When you say "more water", what is your method of applying the water with seats still bolted in? Spray bottle? Or just out of a bucket with a rag?
I will agree, "paying the man" can be a wise answer.
I apply water with a squirt/spray bottle. Add to that a scrub brush like you might use to clean the bath tub.
I like the spay clean r Tuff Stuff as seen in my daughter's hands in picture above. It's sold everywhere in automotive depts including Walmart and Dollar General
I have a Bissell spot carpet cleaner which works well, but...
If it's really dirty, I use the MIL's Full size Rug Doctor with the stair cleaning kit. It's heated. Perhaps you can rent a heated one if the LGM doesn't obtain the desired results?
Here's a process I've used with spectacular results. I took extremely soiled dove interior carpet on a E36 M3 and made it look new.
Supplies needed:
- Wet/Dry shop vac
- Degreaser in a spray bottle, depending on the color of the interior I would get a lighter color degreaser for beige/white interiors.
- 2-3 medium stiff scrub brush (I like one with a handle and like having one for degreaser, soap, and clean water)
- 2x buckets
- Free and Clear laundry detergent
1) Vacuum clean everything first.
2) Spray down whatever area you're working in with degreaser and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.
2a) Vigorously scrub the seats/carpet/whatever you're working on.
3) Hit it with the vacuum again.
4) Put a couple small cap fulls of your free and clear detergent in a bucket and fill it up with hot water.
5) Dunk your second scrub brush in that mixture and start working it into where you just had the degreaser.
6) Vacuum again
7) Fill your second bucket up with just water and scrub that in.
8) Vacuum again until you get most of the moisture out.
9) Repeat on all sections you want clean or until it's as clean as you want it to be.
An alternate and less chemical option is to throw baking soda down, work it into the material, fill a spray bottle up with white vinegar, spray it on the baking soda, work it all in again, and vacuum it up. I've had equal success with both options with car upholstery and home upholstery.
I've been eyeing one of the Little Green Machines too, but after reading this thread, I think I'm just going to buy this accessory brush kit and use the wet/dry shop vac I already have. I hate the manually scrubbing with the scrub brush. Do you guys think this would work out ok?
I have the hoover equivalent of the cleaning machine john has and have been using tuff stuff for 25 years. Spray tuff stuff on stains, brush, cleaning machine with water and either an upholstery cleaner or odoban. Odoban great for stinky stuff like food and cigs.
this was one pass on my avalon back seat with just water and odoban, then went back with the tuff stuff because it was extra disgusting
is there a good video about using the Bissell Little Green Machine to clean a cars interior ,
I see these at the swap meet / yards sales cheap but am not clear about what they can do.....
or even if I have all the needed parts since they are used ,
Thanks
In reply to Indy - Guy :
will your wife question a credit card charge to "ho lick me"?
Remove the seats and scrub them and the carpet with hot soapy water and a stiff brush and then shopvac the water out. Reepeat as necessary. Just elbow grease and a saturday afternoon.
Watched a couple of Youtube videos about removing the seats from the van and it's stupid easy. I'm going to do that anyhow to actually clean the van and if warm enough on Sunday, I'll pressure wash seats and use the LGM to extract the water to dry faster.
First, vacuum the heck out of it to rid yourself of any possible loose pieces, future sludge.
After that, I second the use of Tuff Stuff. Generously spray the seat a section at a time, scrub with a soft bristle brush, spray it with the GM and then scrub it some more, then extract the water.
I bought some WRX seats a few years back that were absolutely filthy (used one in home SIM rig) and uses this exact method with amazing results. You do not need to pay a shop $1000 for an interior cleaning.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Indy - Guy :
will your wife question a credit card charge to "ho lick me"?
LOL I think that kit should work nicely. The detailer vids I have watched use something similar.
I haven't seen anyone mention this so I offer up what I did with my Ranger seats. As suggested by a long time lady friend - I removed the cloth covers and tossed them in the washing machine. Kinda like washing towels. I used Spray and Wash on the heavily dirty spots. Came out very nice.
