brerrabbit

Okay, so reading here has really set me on a tear recently to touch up my 15 year old baby. She had the equivalent of thirty years of crud, crap and sand stuck in her- and I spent two days cleaning and scrubbing, and I wanted to get the community's suggestions.

Thing is, it has to be creative use of a normal household cleaner- I know we've all spent a fortune on our cars, and I have no room to talk about impulse buys. I have two boxes full of products and cleaners that claim to make the car like "new again".

The second picture is after an application of Simple Green to the carpet. A detailer friend of mine recommended it, and damn if he wasn't right. Apologize for the quality of the first pic, it was taken the day after I picked the car up and I can't find the originals...

He also told me to try a lighter concentration to make the seats look better, but I don't know about that. I used a 4:1 concentration on the floormats and the carpet, and vacuumed the floormats with my g/f's Dyson.

Keep it going, folks..

EDIT... 1st pic is after cleaning, 2nd is after purchase- no cleaning yet.

1JZPWRD

iTrader: (59)

Always like to see the before and after results. Thanks for posting up...keep the pictures coming.

Tabaka

iTrader: (8)

DO NOT USE SIMPLE GREEN ON THE LEATHER SEATS

ruined an old pair of leather seats like a decade ago

I'm going to give you a quick secret on how to clean the carpet and some interior pieces. But please be careful and do not use near the leather, woodgrain, center console, or any other painted part. If you have nasty amount of dirt on the door panels or carpet, spray carb cleaner on a rag and wipe clean. That stuff will remove anything even after you've tried the harshest over the counter cleaners. But be very, very careful. Just use it on sections of carpet that are in BAD condition, or if you have scuff marks on the lower seat rail covers, door panels ect. Do not use carb cleaner near imprinted/screenprinted text like the *****, turn signal levers, etc.

I'm sure people will flame it, but it will remove ANYTHING. Just be very careful on how you use it. Best of luck and keep updating with photos.

brerrabbit

Thanks for the love, guys. I appreciate the help..

Tabaka, that's an excellent idea- I have a couple of places on the floormats that I'm going to try it with. This was just an initial attempt at trying to clean years of crap...

That's what I love about car people= to them, the car is a member of the family and they take pride in it. If the paint's not the best, you can trust that whatever they can do to represent class will be done until the car is either sold or back to over 100%.

I did find that a $4.00 bottle of leather foam cleaner from BigLots did wonders for the leather seats and all the areas that have "leather" wrap on them. It's called Old School Leather Cleaner - for Home & Auto.

The seats were about an 8.5 before, so it didn't make them prettier- just softer. Any suggestions for making them prettier (removing some of the cracks, without dying them if possible).

OG Dada

iTrader: (10)

Okay, this is no joke, this is some serious ish what I'm about to suggest to you at a cheap price. Buy this;
http://www.meguiars.com/en/professio...rpose-cleaner/
It's $13+ for a gallon that'll last you months if not years and it's safe to leather, vinyl and cloth. I even use it to clean my rubber shoes. Then use a 2" wide paint brush and shorten the brush to half an inch and use it to scrub and agitate panel by panel. It will take a long time but man it's well worth it. It will bring back the leather shine and original tan color back, and it can even remove oil stains from the carpet. Then after all is said and done put some Lexol leather conditioner or whatever conditioner you want to make the leather soft and protected.

LexyISF

Dilute it to suit....

LexyISF

yes, APC is a detailers dream. Just dilute to suit what ever job you're doing.