How To Super Clean the Interior of your Car (Carpets & Headliner)

hey guys chris fix here and today i'm gonna show you how to super clean the interior of your car and if you're not familiar with the super clean series this is where we go above and beyond the normal clean we're not just gonna vacuum and dust off the dash we're gonna go above and beyond and get this interior looking brand spanking new and the best part is we're gonna be using tools and products that are easy to find readily available and inexpensive i'll be sure to link everything in the description in this video and you'll know the products in this video are going to give you the results you want the tools in this video are going to get you to those results they're going to help you out there's tips and tricks and there's cool tools and products that i'm using that are really going to help you get that extra clean and i can't wait to show you for example with my exterior super clean video we went from this dirty mustang to this beautiful deep dark luscious paintwork with my engine bay super clean video we went from this dirty engine bay to this and this dirty engine bay to this so clean you could eat off of it so you know how to super clean the exterior super clean under the hood now let me show you how to super clean probably the most important part of your car the interior and it's the most important part because this is where you spend all of your time this is where you physically go and sit you touch you breathe you smell you take passengers you bring them into your car you want it to look good you want it to smell good and susan the vandalized car is the perfect example of a car that we need to clean now i wish i knew the backstory behind this car but it looks like they dirtied up the interior with mud on purpose to vandalize the car but i don't know for sure but it is a mess the carpets are dirty there's gum over there the seats are dirty they have all this loose change that has like sugar and it's gummy and tons of candies that are melted the interior trim has dirt and stuff stuck inside of it we have dust we have the steering wheel it's dirty the back of the car is a mess as well this is why i think it's vandalism because i mean i don't think anybody's that dirty so we're gonna clean this if we could clean this you could clean your car no problem now i get not everybody's gonna have a vandalized car so i asked my sister to leave her daily driver here and i'm gonna clean it up for her this is more of the dirtiness you'd expect in a car the door panels are a little dirty from your oils on your skin the carpets are a little bit dirty we have some dirt in the stitches of the seats the center console is a little dirty we have dust everywhere and our steering wheel is dirty from either moisturizer or makeup or whatever that gets on here so this is the typical dirtiness what you guys probably would find in your car so between a typical daily driver and a vandalized car we have the perfect examples to show you how to super clean your car and get it looking great so in this video the first thing we're going to focus on is cleaning these dirty carpets after that we're going to clean the floor mats and then clean the trunk and finally we're gonna clean the headliner which is very delicate and have some awesome tips for that so let's get started so first we need to get the car ready to clean by rolling down the windows that way we don't have to worry about getting any cleaners or oily interior protectants on them which makes it a pain to clean off next you want to pop the trunk open in each of these cars and finally unscrew and disconnect the negative battery cable and we want to disconnect the negative terminal for two reasons one we're gonna have the doors open which will kill the battery over time we're gonna be cleaning the inside of the car could take a couple of hours and the dome lights will be on other lights might be on and two we're gonna be removing our seats to give us more room so some seats today have airbags in them anytime you disconnect something with an airbag you want to have the battery disconnected for 20 minutes 20 minutes later we are safe to remove the seats so slide it forward and we need to remove the two screws in the front so that's one and that's two now push the seat forward and we have two more screws back here that we need to remove good next you want to angle your seat back to give you access to any wires you need to disconnect and in this car we have one harness right here we need to disconnect good now we can carefully remove our seat and you want to make sure that you don't hit any of the metal parts of the seat against the interior or the door panel which could easily scratch it and with the driver's seat out now we can do the same thing and carefully remove the passenger seat and finally we can remove the rear seat by pressing in the two levers below each side of the seat and then this seat bottom pops right out like that and with the seats removed i think you get a good idea of why we take the extra time to remove the seats look at all this junk and dirt that's found underneath the seats all this has to be removed plus we have to clean under here because this is what holds in smells if your car has any odors to it sure you might be able to clean the carpet up there and the carpet back there but under the seat won't get cleaned and that's very important to do plus we want to be able to get to the center console the sides of it right here where the seat would be we want to clean that you can see there is glass and stuff back there we want to clean all that out basically we need the interior to be super clean in order to do that we have to remove the seats so that means we also want to remove the seats from our vandalized car as well so with the seats removed the last thing we need to do in the preparation step is to clean out all the junk from inside of the interior this means removing any loose garbage and papers from the floor and i'll do the same thing for my sister's car and that looks better already and the last place to clean out is the trunk good and it's not as bad in my sister's car but we still want to remove everything so we could properly clean it beautiful now look at all this junk we removed plus i found a winning lottery ticket so today's my lucky day now it's important that you remove all the junk from your car because you can't clean around this this is half the battle getting all this stuff out then if we look over here my sister's car had some junk in it as well but not as much so with all this junk removed now we can move on to the next step to clean the car so to clean the carpets we need four basic things some microfiber towels a good vacuum a stiff bristle brush and a carpet cleaner that is it now i do have some other products i'm going to show you like this steamer this awesome vacuum that injects water and cleaner into the carpets and sucks it out and this brush here i'll show you those you don't need them but they do help give you that extra clean so let's go get started first if you have floor mats you want to remove them and i like to fold the edges that way dirt doesn't fall back onto the carpets when you take them out and if you take a look floor mats do a pretty good job at keeping your carpets clean underneath so with our floor mats removed there are four quick steps to clean the carpets first we're going to vacuum the dirt off the carpet second we're going to spot clean third we're going to shampoo the carpet and fourth we're gonna protect the carpet so one of the most important pieces of equipment we're gonna be using is a vacuum like this this is a shopvac i've been using this forever it has five horsepower so tons of power to suck all the dirt out it's also a wet dry shop vac so it could suck out water if you need to and again it's about the power you're going to be able to lift out all the dirt with this so i suggest you get something like this to help you vacuum your car so as you would expect start by vacuuming all the dirt and debris off the surface of the carpet usually this is going to be larger pieces of dirt and it's going to be pretty easy to remove now there's still going to be dirt deeper in the carpet so to remove that grab a brush and use the brush to agitate the carpet and loosen up that dirt that's caught deep in the fibers you can see the dirt and the dust that was deeply embedded in the carpet come right up and then you have to vacuum right here to suck it right up so using a brush is a huge help in getting that dirt loose and making it easy to vacuum out of the carpet and you can see here the before and after not bad so you're going to want to brush and vacuum the rest of the carpet in your car so it goes from this to this and this to this and check it out what a little bit of brushing and vacuuming does is amazing look at that it looks so good both sides are looking way better than before so now we're on to the next step and that's the spot treatment step so anything you couldn't get out of the carpets any stains any candies like this melted chocolate right here which is melted into the carpet and isn't easily coming up and then if we come over here you can see there is gum stuck to the carpet and this is in there good so you won't want to just rip it out and damage the carpet so i'm going to show you two different techniques you could use to spot clean first is the hot soapy water technique you get a squirt of dish soap you put it in here and you fill the rest of the way with hot water and just using the hot water from the tap you can see it gets to around 120 degrees fahrenheit which is hot enough this is very easy to find at home most people have access to products like this soapy water and a toothbrush so let me show you how to clean it up the first thing you're going to want to do is remove as many big pieces as possible so get all this out of the way then you're going to saturate the area with some nice warm soapy water and next grab a brush and use that to agitate the chocolate pieces the hot water melts that chocolate so it's making it nice and easy to remove from the carpet fibers and finally let's wipe away the stain with a towel and blot up the water from the carpet like so and that's not too shabby for some warm soapy water and a toothbrush but there is another method and that is using a steam cleaner like this so instead of using warm soapy water which is like 120 degrees steam is about 212 degrees fahrenheit so you don't need any soap just add plain water to the steam cleaner and screw on the top then all you need to do is plug her in and after about a minute or so she is ready with some very hot steam let me show you how this works on that gum so let the steamer do all the work use the pressure and the heat from the steam to push the gum out of the fibers and then we want to remove as much of the gum as we can without ripping out the fibers of the carpet now let's go back in here with the steam and loosen up the rest of the gum and i'm using a brush to clean deep into the fibers i'm pulling that gum out of the fibers and bringing it to the surface it's easy to clean the surface but the gum that's down deep in there is a lot tougher to remove but this is working great and then finally you want to hit it one more time with some steam which is going to sanitize the area prevent mold and prevent odors good so here's what it looked like before and here's what it looks like now nice and clean and you can see why i like the steamer so much plus there's other applications we could use this for in different parts of the car besides stains in the carpet now after you're done spot cleaning your carpet and removing all the stains the next thing to do is shampoo the carpet and this is an important step because it's going to remove the odors in the carpet and it's going to clean out anything that we couldn't get to with just the vacuum any little stains or discoloration that you find in there any little pieces of dirt that you have in there it's going to clean all that and make it nice and even so this looks like one brand new carpet so let's get started to shampoo the carpets all you need is a carpet cleaner a brush and a towel first you want to spray down the entire carpet with your carpet cleaner try to use a carpet cleaner that not only removes stains but also removes odors especially if the inside of your car has a smell to it most of the smell comes from your carpet as well as your seats and your headliner and this carpet definitely smells musty with all that dirt that was in there so finish spraying the entire carpet and next grab your brush and we want to agitate the carpet cleaner deep into the fibers for the most part the carpet cleaner stays near the surface and that's just going to clean the top of the fibers but we want to brush deep into the carpet that way we're going to get a better deeper clean also while you're brushing make sure you brush in different directions this will work the cleaner more evenly into your carpet and get you better results now you're going to want to grab an absorbent towel like this microfiber towel and you're going to want to rub along the entire carpet to absorb the dirt and cleaner that we just loosened up you're going to want to press down with a medium pressure and work the towel back and forth making sure you clean the entire carpet and just take a look at all the dirt we absorbed out of the carpet when doing this next what you're going to want to do is grab a vacuum and we're going to vacuum up any loose dirt and any cleaner we didn't absorb into the towel this is basically sucking the dirt and cleaner up to the surface and i like to draw lines in the carpet working my way one direction and then work my way in the other direction that way i know i'm thorough and i'm not missing any spots and then finally you're gonna take your towel and do one more pass over the carpet to absorb that last amount of dirt and cleaner that we just sucked up good and now that is how you shampoo your carpets check out how clean this looks and while this is very clean if you want we could get this even cleaner and to do that you would use something like this this is a water injection carpet vacuum this works amazing i love these things so how this works is on this side we have a reservoir for soapy water plain water whatever water you want and then we have a specialized hose that shoots the liquid out that we have in this container and then sucks it up with this special nozzle and puts it in here let me show you so when you press the trigger water shoots out like so and all you need to do is press that trigger and slowly drag the nozzle along the carpet with a medium downward pressure and what's happening is the water is getting injected into the carpet it's dissolving and loosening up any of the dirt and then we're sucking it back out and you can see the dirty water getting pulled out of the carpet and leaving behind a nice clean carpet and i don't know about you guys but for whatever reason this is super satisfying you get such a deep clean and you can see it's actually working and just like with the regular vacuum i like to go in one direction and then go in the opposite direction and that's going to get us complete coverage and then once you're done the last thing to do is get a clean stiff brush and we're going to brush the carpet fibers in one direction with all the carpet fibers going in the same direction the carpet's going to look really good it's going to look even it's going to have the same shade the same color it's just that extra step to make the carpet look amazing and after you let that dry look at this carpet it literally looks brand new but even better take a look at the recovery tank look at all the dirt we extracted from the carpet and that's going to remove the smells and make the carpet look that much cleaner so let's finish the rest of the interior and i think you understand the process spray down the entire carpet with carpet cleaner work that cleaner in with a brush and then either use a microfiber towel to absorb the dirt or even better use an extractor vacuum which i highly highly suggest to get amazing results and then finally use a brush to brush the carpet fibers in the same direction to give you a really nice smooth even looking carpet beautiful and the carpet cleaning transformation is incredible here is the before in my sister's car and here is the after before and after this looks amazing so what a huge difference shampooing the carpets makes not only does it look a million times better but it used to smell really musty in here and now it smells nice and fresh but there is one thing i want to mention it's very important as you're cleaning the carpets that you don't over saturate them you don't get too much liquid in them if you take a look at the carpet you can see there's carpet material on the top and then underneath we have sound deadening material and this sound editing material acts like a sponge it absorbs water and it's really hard to remove unless you remove the entire carpet and air it out and the problem with that is if you over saturate it this will hold water and you could get mold so don't drench your carpets with water or soak it you just want to use the carpet cleaner and if you have an extractor just like i showed you and it'll come out perfect alright so as we let these carpets air out and dry let's move on to the next step now let's clean these messy floor mats cleaning the floor mats is a similar process but use the ability to remove the floor mats from the car to your advantage for example we could brush off most of this dirt from the surface pretty quickly i also like to bang out the floor mats which works amazing to get that dirt trapped deep into the fibers right out look at all the dirt coming out right now next we could vacuum up any leftover dirt and get it ready for my favorite step and that step is to use a hose or pressure washer and force all the dirt and stains out of the floor mat a pressure washer works amazing for this and it cleans that dirt and the stains out so easily now we could spray the floor mat down with carpet cleaner and let it sit for a minute now we've already used a brush like this instead of showing you this again i want to show you how to use one of these brushes which connects right to a drill so with the brush on the drill i like to keep a light to medium pressure downwards and a medium speed on the drill and let the drill do all the work just make sure you keep moving that drill from side to side or up and down don't let it stop and sit in one spot and to keep the cleaning relatively even work your way back and forth along the carpet and then do the same thing in the other direction also if you have any logos or stains be careful but give it a little extra attention to make it extra clean so with the floor mats brushed now we can use the pressure washer and wash all the dirt and soap out and again you can see how dirty that water is and finally get your extractor vacuum and you're gonna suck out any remaining dirt water and cleaner it's not going to make it perfectly dry but it's going to get most of that water out and just make the floor mats damp and check out all the dirt we removed these floor mats are like brand new now so although a brush like this definitely works well i highly suggest you looking into one of these it makes the job quick and easy and you get amazing results so now we need to let these floor mats completely dry and a little trick to get these floor mats to dry pretty quickly is hang them on a clothes hanger like this and put them in the air you just want them to be out in the open and hanging them up like this lets it dry real quick so our floor mats are clean they're dry and that's where most people would stop but we have one more step and that is to protect them this is a carpet protector that prevents future stains makes it easier to clean the carpets and prevents salt stains if you live in an area where there's snow and you get salt let me show you how to put it on this is just like spray painting you want light even overlapping coats so work your way down the floor mat in one direction good now we're gonna let this dry for 15 minutes and after it's dry do one more light coat in the opposite direction again make sure you do slight overlaps so you don't have any uneven spots and we cover the entire floor mat and finally i like to coat the edge just to make sure i got the whole edge so spray one last spray around the edge like so good all right so you know what they say the proof is in the pudding and i want to show you what to expect when you protect your carpet so we have this carpet right here which is not protected and then we have this carpet right here which is protected you can pretend this is juice this is coffee or you could just pretend it's water it doesn't matter any liquid that goes into the carpet is gonna absorb right in you see how it just goes right in with our protected carpet check this out the water stays right at the surface it repels almost like waxing your car and then if you want to clean it up you just absorb it up just like that so you can see the benefit of not only cleaning your floor mats but protecting them that way it's harder to get stains and a lot easier to clean up so now let's get the passenger side floor mats in as well as the driver's side and beautiful these floor mats are looking amazing our carpet is looking incredible this interior is starting to take shape and look great especially compared to before so with these all nice and clean now we can move on to the next step next up let's clean the trunk first if you can remove your trunk floor like this definitely remove it so we could clean it outside the car now let's get that spare tire out of there so we could really clean out this spare tire well so now we have access to vacuum the carpeting down here and then we can remove this carpet and vacuum the spare tire area as well and then move on to the carpeting on the side of the trunk here and on the other side and remember if you need to use a brush to loosen up any dirt definitely do it and it'll help give you a more thorough clean good now we could clean and protect this plastic trim piece start by using an interior cleaner and spray into your brush then brush the cleaner into the plastic and i like using a brush on textured plastics because it gets into all the nooks and crannies and then after you're done brushing in the cleaner now we could wipe the cleaner off with the microfiber towel next we want to apply a protectant to another brush and work this brush into the plastic just like we did with the cleaner and don't worry about using too much protectant we want the plastic to absorb all that protectant which will make that plastic look brand new and then finally after you let this sit for a minute or two now we can buff it off with a microfiber towel and check out these results before and after this looks amazing and finally we can't forget to vacuum up the main carpet that we removed from the trunk and this really isn't that dirty so just a little bit of vacuuming and it looks good as new so with everything in the trunk all nice and clean we could put it all back together all right so our trunk is looking amazing there's no stains it's nice and clean no dirt and our plastics looking good but we don't want to stop there that's just the inside of the trunk don't forget you also have the top part of the trunk that closes now i did vacuum all this because it wasn't very dirty did it real quickly it looks great but what is very dirty is this up here this paintwork this is not looking good and this is something you're going to see every time you open up the trunk look at that see all that dirt in there also if we take a look down here you can see there's all dirt in the rain gutter there's debris here sticks and leaves and twigs so we want to remove all of that because it doesn't look good and we want it to look nice and clean these are the little details that you want to remember to clean so it comes out amazing so let's start by vacuuming out all the leaves and the twigs from the rain gutters now instead of taking the hose out to clean all this out and potentially getting water in the trunk i'm gonna be using a waterless wash and this has wax in it so saturate the area with the waterless wash and waterless washes are designed to prevent scratching while cleaning light dust and dirt so you don't have to hose this down and this is what i mean by paying attention to details this looks so good it gives you that brand new car vibe because this is clean now in the tight spaces spray it down and then i suggest using a soft brush to agitate that dirt and loosen it up that way all you have to do is wipe it away with a microfiber towel then we could go from this to this and this to this and this really gives you a good idea of what a big difference this makes when you clean the surrounding paintwork on the trunk now would you look at this chunk it is looking super clean not only is it vacuumed it's stain free but we went the extra mile we cleaned out the spare tire well we made sure it was organized it was clean there's no junk down there and we paid attention to the little details we cleaned up here all the painted surfaces are cleaned and waxed including the rain channels this is super important it changes how the car looks when you open the trunk when this isn't filled with leaves it's not dirty and it looks brand new all of this is waxed and cleaned and it looks just absolutely amazing so that is how you super clean your trunk so next up i'm going to show you how to clean a headliner now the headliner can be a little bit tricky because this is pretty delicate you do not want to be aggressive with it because you could damage it let me show you so we're in the back of my dad's jag and this is exactly what we want to avoid this is why headliners are delicate we do not want to cause the headliner to sag like this and being too aggressive with it while cleaning could cause this problem the headliner is just this material on the back of this material typically is a foam you can see the foam indenting and on the back of that is an adhesive if we damage the foam or we damage the adhesive over time the headliner could sag so we don't want to be aggressive like we were with the carpets we want to be very delicate with how we clean this and just get to the surface material so we don't cause anything like this in the future so cleaning your headliner is actually pretty simple it's all about the technique here's all you need we're going to use some carpet cleaner we have a soft bristle brush make sure your brush is extra clean and then we have a soft absorbent microfiber towel and that is it so let's go get started and this headliner is looking pretty clean but there is a nice mark in the back that we need to spot clean now before we do anything my biggest tip for cleaning a headliner is always try to start with dry cleaning don't go in with any liquids we want to try to use as little liquid as possible when cleaning this so if we don't need to use any liquid at all that is awesome i'm gonna start out with a clean dry microfiber towel very important that this is clean if it's dirty you're just gonna spread more dirt onto this and you're gonna lightly rub back and forth just to try to clean as much of that dirt off the surface look at that we already removed a bunch i could still see a mark there but that's way better than before and we just lightly rubbed it so lightly rub that back and forth to try to get most of it out and then i'm going to move to another clean part of the microfiber towel and again lightly rub it and wow that's already coming out so that's really good now unfortunately you could still see there is a very light mark there that we need to get out so now we're gonna move on to using a brush again this is gonna be a dry clean we're not using any liquids yet hopefully we don't have to but we're gonna keep this dry right now and it's very important that the bristles of your brush are clean i cleaned them with soapy water and i dried them because if this is dirty from something else that you cleaned you're gonna just be pushing that into the headliner and even just a little bit of dirt is gonna make it visible because this is a nice white headliner so go in there and lightly brush away any of that dirt don't push too hard oh man this is coming out beautiful i don't even know where that mark is anymore and we didn't have to use any liquids which is super super important if you could get away with cleaning a mark like that without any liquids that is the best case scenario here's a before and here's an after and that was a textbook example of cleaning a mark off the headliner without using any liquids at all but unfortunately sometimes you need to use a liquid cleaner because the stain is deep in there just like with this stain right here so again we're gonna start out with a clean portion of our microfiber towel and we're gonna lightly rub back and forth to try to clean this as much as we can and you can definitely see this stain is in there a lot deeper and it's gonna be tougher to remove so now let's use a dry brush to get deeper into the fabric and now you can still see there is a stain here mostly right here but there's still some marks right here in here after the dry clean now we have to move to a wet clean so grab your carpet cleaner and add just a little bit into your microfiber towel and work that cleaner into the towel fibers that way it doesn't get completely absorbed by that headliner now lightly wipe the headliner to try to clean the stain off the surface of the headliner and the goal here is to not saturate the headliner we don't want to see any watermarks from our cleaner and we're getting closer that's looking better here we can still see a slight stain but this is still there so let's try to clean this a little bit deeper and to do that grab your brush and spray a little bit of carpet cleaner in there and then work that into the headliner to remove the stain and if the headliner starts to get saturated like you see here don't worry there is a solution for this we didn't use a lot of cleaner so it's really not a big deal just focus on removing that stain and once that stain is removed wipe the area down with the microfiber towel all right so that looks clean except for the giant watermark we just created now if we leave this and let it dry odds are you're gonna see the edge of the watermark we definitely don't want that so what we're gonna do is we're gonna feather out that watermark almost like feathering out a paint job so it blends there's no hard paint lines we're working the edge of the watermark and spreading it outward so the damp part of the headliner blends with the dry part of the headliner and the goal here is to completely blend it so you can't see a hard watermark then go in there with your dry microfiber towel and lightly wipe up any of that moisture you can and it should blend this nicely into the surrounding dry headliner and look at that no more watermark so that is how you feather that watermark out so it doesn't dry and look horrible so we went from this to this to this beautiful and there you go that is how you super clean the carpets in the car as well as the trunk and the headliner and what a huge difference clean carpets make the carpets in susan were a mess but now they are looking great and the same thing for my sister's car the carpets were a mess but now they are looking amazing and this is most of the work that you're gonna be putting into cleaning the interior so once you get this done the rest is easy same goes for the trunk it was a mess but now it's nice and tidy and finally those distracting stains on the headliner are clean and they aren't an eyesore anymore now we aren't done in the next video we're going to be focusing on cleaning the dashboard center console and door panels and we're also going to be cleaning the seats which is going to be a huge transformation i can't wait so hopefully the video was helpful if it was remember to give it a thumbs up if you're not a subscriber consider hitting that subscribe button and as always all the tools and products i used in this video will be linked down in the description so you can easily find them stay tuned

Channel: ChrisFix

Views: 7,358,099

Rating: 4.9117208 out of 5

Keywords: chrisfix, superclean, super clean, chrisfix superclean, chrisfix super clean, how to detail your car, how to clean the inside of your car, how to superclean the inside of your car

Id: Pctzq_pT2MU

Length: 27min 23sec (1643 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/gante742]

I love how the spray bottle is labeled “soapy wooder” lol

[u/pleasurecabbage]

Im not sure why people are complaing about how long this is.... this seams like exactly what I would want in a how to... if for what ever reason im looking for a video on how to really clean a car I dont want a video with a 5 min intro and then a guy going "pick up stuff before it becomes a problem"

I want some one that is going to tell me how to get the best results for the smallest amount of work and pointing out little things or tricks that I would not have thought of

[u/Carbonfarmer]

Chrisfix is my favourite DIY car repair youtuber! Very throughough walk through on most of the normal maintenance for cars. I've used his videos for a lot of my projects!! Great watch :)

[u/estherlane]

Watching that actually makes me want to clean my car!

This video belongs in r/oddlysatisfying and r/nextfuckinglevel

[u/Cristianana]

Informative for sure, but I'm kinda disappointed that he didn't go over how to get all the dust and crap out of the nooks and crannies in the plastic. I was really looking forward to seeing him wipe out those cup holders lol

[u/StrappedKorean]

I cant believe I just watched the whole 30 minutes of that

[u/Ackllz]

Wassup guys, Chris fix here

[u/trig72]

Not much of a car cleaner but I watched the whole video. Well done

[u/brokenearth03]

Where's the "how to keep on the internet from complaining about things they can instantly ignore" video?