Spot-clean light coloured interior

yannakis

The interior of my Prius is a light grey colour, and every little stain stands out! For example, even rain drops from opening and closing the door are visible..

How would you battle these little stains?

In the long run, how would you clean the upholstery?

Curran

For cleaning, an upholstery cleaner (these are low foaming to make removal easier), sprayed on, bit of a scrub, and then removed - ideally by extraction (wet vac), but can be patted with a microfiber towel, the latter probably requiring a 2nd or 3rd attempt to get it perfect.

Just to note, when doing spot cleaning, wetting a spot and scrubbing that spot, may leave a tide line; where the wet and dry areas meet - so its usually best of giving the whole area a treatment - so for example a whole seat base, or a whole seat back, or a bolster.


For your sanity going forward, Id protect the seats to prevent anything further absorbing into the fabric - there are some very good fabric coatings that give fantastic protection, enough to get the spill off the surface before soaking through, and therefore preventing staining. CarPro, Gtechniq, Gyeon, would be manufacturers to look at for these products.

yannakis

Thanks Curran, a wet vac could be a good investment even for carpets in the house but until then I'll give try the microfibre towel option a try. I guess the fabric coatings would have to be applied on as clean upholstery as possible, right?

Can you suggest any particular upholstery cleaner or would any of the Samoniz/Turtle wax from Halfrods do the job?

Curran

I've always been a fan of Chemical Guys Fabric Clean.

Would pass on the Halfords stuff; but that's just my opinion.