Key Takeaways:
- Practical Tips For Restoration: Restore your car's interior to its original splendor with practical restoration tips and techniques.
- Choosing The Right Materials: Select high-quality materials to improve the look and longevity of your vehicle's interior.
- Expert Strategies For Long-Lasting Results: Maintain that new car feel with ongoing care strategies and expert product recommendations for long-lasting results.
Your car's interior sets the tone for every commute or joyride, serving as your personal space for years—or even decades. Over time, though, you might step inside and realize it’s time for a full restoration, a task that can feel overwhelming.
At Chemical Guys, we specialize in products that help you achieve the car of your dreams — even when you already have one but its luster has faded a little.
In this article, we’ll share the A-to-Zs of interior cleaning to get your vehicle looking and feeling as good as new. Consider this your ultimate guide to mastering the art of car interior restoration.
Prepare Your Gear
Even if you don’t think your car is dirty, cover all your bases and clean everything from your carpets to your door handles. Here’s a list of gear to get you started:
- Complete Interior Kits: Don’t want to purchase each product individually? Whether you’re tackling leather, fabric, floor mats, or carpets, we’ve bundled the ultimate solutions that cover it all.
- Protective Gloves Or Masks are especially important if you’re cleaning someone else’s car and you don’t know what kind of gunk you’re dealing with. Whatever you have to do, safety always comes first.
- Dedicated Leather Cleaner And Conditioner: This is necessary if you want a deep clean and your leather isn’t in great shape. Our HydroLeather Ceramic Coating and Quick Detailer cleans, conditions, and protects your leather surfaces with an all-in-one solution.
- Total Interior: It cleans and UV-protects virtually any interior surface, including leather, vinyl, plastic, carpet, cloth, wood, glass, dashboards, and navigation screens. Plus, our New Car Smell scent makes it feel like you’re driving it right off the lot.
- Vinyl, Rubber & Plastic Protectant: Restore your vinyl, rubber, and plastic surfaces to their original shine and protect surfaces against harmful UV solar rays.
- Boar’s Hair Bristle Brush: A must-have tool for delicate and sensitive hard-to-reach spots. You might want to pick up a couple of these to use each one for a specific purpose and avoid cross-contamination.
- All In The Details Interior Brush Set: Dislodge tough grime and dirt without scratching up sensitive surfaces with these lightweight brushes.
- All In The Details Exterior Brush Set: These flexible brushes work great on floor mats with grooves and ridges, working debris out of those crevices.
- Horse Hair Brush: Safely scrub sensitive leather, fabric, canvas, or convertible materials and reach deep into the pores of your seats and other surfaces for a thorough clean.
- Drill Carpet Brush (Optional): Although it’s called a carpet brush, it can be used on vinyl and rubber if your floor mats are especially dirty. If regular elbow grease isn’t enough, this tool will remove all the contaminants from your mats.
- Fabric Clean: A citrus-based product that kills odor bacteria lingering on your carpets. It can be used for deep and general cleaning by diluting with a 20:1 ratio.
- Fabric Protectant & Stain Repellent: A hydrophobic stain repellent with the power of ceramic protection specifically designed for textiles.
- Mat ReNew Floor Mat Cleaner And Protectant: A product specifically designed to deep clean and restore the original look of your rubber and vinyl floor mats.
- ProBlow (Optional): This blower removes the remaining water from your rubber and vinyl floor mats for best results while drying them.
- Microfiber Towels And Workhorse Towels: You’ll need a bunch of these to buff off excess product.
- Premium Grade Microfiber Applicators: This is the best applicator to apply leather conditioner.
- Air Freshener (Optional Perfect Finishing Touch): Our range of customized air fresheners like the popular Black Frost will keep your car smelling fresh for a long time.
Assess The Damage
Regarding car interior restoration, the true magic begins with a comprehensive to-do list and detailed attention to every nook and cranny.
Step 1: Clear Out All Belongings
You’ll want to start out with a clean slate. The last thing you want to worry about when cleaning is loose change and straw wrappers everywhere. Grab an empty bag and gather all the trash and anything else you don’t need off the seats and floor. Make sure to put everything away.
Step 2: Remove Floor Mats
Grab your floor mats and make a taco shape by holding the edges up. This helps keep all the dirt, grime, leaves, and other debris on the mat so it doesn’t get on the carpet underneath. The last thing you need is to have all this gunk flying on the clean surface underneath your mat. It also gives you fewer things to clean on the inside of the car, so you can focus on cleaning section by section.
Step 3: Identify What You Need To Do
Does your car need a good vacuuming session? Do you need to get some stains out of your carpets and seats with the help of our DetailVac Handheld Vacuum Cleaner? Make a comprehensive mental (or written) to-do list of what you need to do so you don’t miss a spot and decide what order is best for your car. Take care of yourself and wear protective gear like gloves and/or a mask, especially if you’re cleaning someone else’s car.
Step 4: Work From Top to Bottom
Just like how you want to wash your car from top to bottom, you also want to clean the interior from top to bottom. Thoroughly inspect the dashboard, crusty cup holders, shift knobs, and all that good stuff. Lots of dirt and grime can collect here, so you want to clean it deep and get all that nastiness out of that area.
Refreshing Your Dashboard
Alright, it’s time to roll up those sleeves and get to cleaning. We’ll start with your ride’s command center: the dashboard.
Step 5: Tackle Dust On Front Panels
Begin by minimizing the contaminants with a simple spray and wipe solution. The product you want to use for this is Total Interior, a great maintenance cleaner perfect for removing things like light dust, debris, and food stains. Just spray this on a microfiber towel, and you can remove tons of light dust quickly and easily with no problem. Spray it directly on the towel to prevent overspray and have more product to work with later.
It also adds a layer of UV protection, so it’s a great all-around cleaner to restore your interior surfaces since you can use it on various surfaces like hard plastics, navigation screens, vinyl, and leather. While that's great, we still recommend using a dedicated cleaner, like HydroLeather, for leather surfaces instead of relying solely on Total Interior. But it’s a convenient everyday spray to have in your car to wipe down areas like the steering wheel spinner, paddles, nav screen, volume knobs, buttons, and other challenging plastic areas, to get all the light dust out of the way.
Step 6: Detailing The Steering Wheel
A lot of dust tends to get stuck in the fancy gadgets on modern steering wheels, like your volume and cruise control. Grab a nice, soft Boar’s Hair Detailing Brush for small areas and crevices anywhere in your interior. It’s flexible, can be used dry or wet, and can knock off dust and debris on tight surfaces quickly and easily without having to do any tedious cleaning with your microfiber towel.
Having the proper tools for interior cleaning is crucial to have the smoothest detailing experience possible. We recommend keeping dedicated Boar’s Hair Brushes for interior and exterior detailing since it’s good to have one for your wheels, engine bay, interior cleaning (cup holders, around your nav screen, air vents, etc.), and specialized use with an all-purpose cleaner such as our Nonsense All Purpose Cleaner. It’s not that one brush isn’t enough; it’s just great to have multiple for different purposes to avoid cross-contamination.
Step 7: Start With A Brush And Nonsense Spray For The Door Panels
If you’ve never used our Nonsense All Purpose Cleaner before, you’re seriously missing out. Pick this stuff up because this stuff is awesome. It works on virtually all surfaces inside and outside your car, making it the best all-purpose cleaner. In this case, you can dilute it to a 20:1 ratio for general-purpose cleaning or 8:1 for heavy-duty cleaning. We like to utilize it by spraying it directly onto an All In The Details Interior Brush and a light spritz on the surface we’re working on. You can use it on pretty much the entire door panel.
Step 8: Buff Away The Excess With A Clean Microfiber Towel
Once you’re finished with a section, grab a clean, fresh Microfiber Towel to buff off the excess. Nonsense will decontaminate this surface before applying a dressing (which is the exterior equivalent of wax). Instead of being shiny, pebbled hard plastic surfaces like this should look matte, which means they’re clean.
Step 9: Go Around Your Entire Vehicle With Nonsense Spray And A Brush
Clean all the hard plastic surfaces like door panels and the plastic you step on/off when you enter/exit your vehicle. This is especially important since this area sees a ton of foot traffic. Clean your brush with your microfiber towel as you go around. Always have a towel on you to wipe off the brushes needed. Check the bristles of your brush now and then to ensure there's nothing stuck in there that can scratch up your interior surfaces. Make it a habit to agitate and rinse the brush’s bristles to ensure there are no contaminants that can potentially ruin your ride.
Step 10: Deep Clean Your Leather
Whenever you’re cleaning dirty leather, Leather Cleaner and a Horse Hair Brush are where it’s at. Simply grab some leather cleaner, spray directly on the horse hair bristle brush, and it’s ready. Horsehair works extremely well here because, just like how we used a textured brush for the door panels, we want to use a designated brush to clean the crevices and texture of the leather. Then, you want to spray a light product directly onto the leather surface. Don’t go crazy; four sprays are enough. Start agitating the leather with circular motions and work the brush thoroughly to ensure you get the cleaner in all the angles. It should immediately erase all that dirt and grime for a nice, deep, restorative clean. This is great for the center console area if yours is made with leather.
Step 11: Buff Off The Excess
Once it's all nice and scrubbed down, get a workhorse towel and buff off the excess cleaner to reveal that nice, clean leather. It should look amazing, just like it was initially. Since the oils on the surface of the leather have been removed, it should feel smooth, soft, and supple to the touch, which means it’s completely clean.
Step 12: Condition The Leather
Since the leather has been stripped of all body oils and any grime, we want it to feel nice and supple again. Go in with a Leather Conditioner and a Premium Grade Microfiber Applicator to restore the leather's original look and soft feel. Apply two drops of the conditioner directly on the applicator for small areas like the center console, and use more for bigger areas like leather seats. Blot it on the surface of the leather and work it in with swiping motions. It should bring your leather back to life and give it a little shine. But it will come away with a dry-to-the-touch finish.
Step 13: Buff Off The Conditioner
You can use a separate workhorse towel or flip over your applicator to the dry side (the side where you haven’t applied any conditioner) to buff off any excess product. You need to pick up the excess product to have a completely dry finish. Then, you’re done! Touching the leather shouldn’t leave any oily residue on your fingers, just a smooth feel.
Step 14: Pay Close Attention To Perforated Leather Seats
Just a word of advice for leather seats with perforation (ventilation holes): Don’t spray your leather cleaner directly on this surface. It’ll get stuck in the pores. Spray directly on the surface of your horse hair brush and begin to agitate the leather. It’ll help reduce how much product gets in the holes of the leather, so you can maximize the best use of your product without wasting any by letting it go into those cracks. Ensure you’re applying enough product to foam up nicely, allowing you to have a deep, rich lather while getting all those hard-to-reach areas. Then, as always, buff off the excess with a clean towel. Even better, dab the perforated leather with a microfiber towel so there’s no product build-up over time. Your perforated leather seats will look fresh and well-maintained.
Step 15: Cleaning Rubber And Vinyl Floor Mats
Use Mat ReNew Floor Mat Cleaner And Protectant, a product designed to clean your rubber and vinyl floor mats to restore their original look. First, give your floor mats a nice little rinse with water from a hose outside to knock off the loose dirt and debris. It also helps with the lubrication aspect of the cleaning process. Then, simply spray a product layer onto the floor mat, covering the entire surface. Even though these brushes are for exterior use, you can use our All In The Details Exterior Brush Set for interior surfaces like this. They’re great for mats with ridges/grooves because they’re a little bit flexible, and a stiffer brush wouldn’t be able to get into the crevices. You can pair this with a Drill Carpet Brush if your floor mats are especially dirty. After this, remove all the soap with another rinse from a hose and dry it with a clean microfiber towel. You can use a ProBlow to remove the remaining water after a quick wipe-down with a towel for best results.
Step 16: Cleaning Fabric And Carpet Floor Mats
To deodorize and deep clean your carpets or fabric floor mats, use Fabric Clean. It’s a citrus-based product that kills odor bacteria. It can be diluted to a 20:1 ratio for general-purpose cleaning, like quick spot cleaning. If you’re a smoker or your car mats are holding on to strong odors, the best way to clean them is with a citrus-based cleaning solution like Fabric Clean. It helps destroy any kind of odors trapped in the fabric.
Step 17: Deeply Vacuum Your Car Interior
Deeply vacuum your carpets, floors, and all the crevices of your car, like the grooves of your seat cushions. Then, you can put your fully dry floor mats back in.
Step 18: Add Your Favorite Air Freshener
We like to spray about three spritzes of our favorite air freshener directly onto the fabrics or carpet of the car. Then, turn on your air conditioning and put it on recirculation to circulate the air from the bottom of your car throughout your vehicle. This pulls the nice scent from the carpet, filters it through your AC system to kill any odor bacteria, and distributes it around your entire car. That’s one of our favorite ways to maximize the use and longevity of air fresheners.
Final Thoughts
With these steps complete, you can enjoy and bask in the essence of a freshly cleaned ride and a fully restored car interior. It's not just about bringing back that new car feel; it's about reigniting that love for your ride. With Chemical Guys, you can transform your car’s interior from tired and worn to fresh and new with the right detailing tools, letting your passion for perfection drive you.
Read also:
- How To Properly Clean Black Wheels
- How To Use HydroThread To Protect Your Car’s Interior
- How To Clean And Protect Rubber Floor Mats
Frequently Asked Questions About Car Interior Restoration
Can I restore old leather seats?
Absolutely! You can breathe new life into old leather seats with the right products and techniques. Start by thoroughly cleaning the leather with a pH-balanced Leather Cleaner to remove dirt and oils. Then, use a high-quality Leather Conditioner to nourish and protect the leather, making it look and feel new.
What's the best way to clean car seats?
The best way to clean car seats depends on the material. For fabric seats, use a dedicated fabric cleaner and a soft brush to lift stains and dirt gently. For leather seats, opt for a pH-balanced leather cleaner followed by a conditioner to keep the leather supple. Always remember to test any product in a small, inconspicuous area first.
Can I restore my car interior myself?
Yes, you can! With patience, the right products, and guidance from reliable sources like Chemical Guys, DIY car interior restoration is entirely achievable. Our extensive library of how-tos and courses are designed to empower car enthusiasts of all skill levels to undertake their car interior restoration projects. Check out our YouTube channel for complete video guides to follow along.
How long does it take to restore a car interior?
The time it takes to restore a car interior can vary greatly depending on the extent of the restoration needed and your level of experience. Simple cleanings can be done in a few hours, while more extensive restorations, including repairing or replacing parts, might take several days or more. Remember, the key is not to rush but to ensure every detail is cleaned thoroughly.
What are common mistakes in car interior restoration?
Common mistakes include using harsh chemicals that can damage surfaces, skipping prep work, and being impatient during the restoration process. Remember, using the right products for your car’s specific materials and following the proper steps diligently can make a significant difference in the outcome.
How can I maintain my car interior after restoration?
Maintaining your car interior post-restoration involves regular cleaning and protection. Use the appropriate cleaners for each surface type and apply protectants to guard against UV rays and further wear. Placing floor mats and using sunshades can also prevent future damage. Incorporate these practices into a routine to keep your car looking its best.
