You can’t always afford professional detailing services. Sometimes your budget dictates you figure out how to detail your vehicle yourself in order to still protect the investment you’ve made in your vehicle already. In this article, our experts offer interior detailing tips so your car doesn’t have to suffer due to your budget.
What You Need for Professional-Level Interior Detailing
The following items are necessary for professional-quality interior detailing:
- Microfiber cloth
- Leather cleaner
- Leather cleaning brush
- Fabric treatment shampoo
- Surface cleaner
- Interior trim protector
- Vacuum cleaner
- Carpet shampoo
If you’re just looking to do enough interior detailing to get by, you probably don’t need all of this. Use your best judgment to ensure you have all the supplies you need.
Start with a Clean Slate
To start with, you need to remove all clutter, trash, loose dirt, etc. from inside your vehicle. Before you ever get to scrubbing and vacuuming, you have to start with a clean slate. Make sure you pick up any large pieces of trash, rocks, and change to ensure you don’t clog your vacuum.
Carpets and Mats
Before you get to work cleaning your carpet, remove any mats or seat covers first in case dirt falls off them onto the carpet. It also makes it easier to not miss the dirt under them. Start from the top and work your way down: start by cleaning the parcel shelf and mats outside the vehicle with the vacuum, shampooing if necessary. If your vehicle has rubber mats as well, be sure to rinse them thoroughly and hang them up to dry with the fabric mats if you shampooed them.
The next step is to clean your carpets. Our expert detailing tip is to use a spray shampoo so you can cover the area more evenly. Using a thick bristle brush, work the shampoo into the carpet thoroughly one area at a time.
Dashboard and Center Console
A bottle or can of compressed air and your vacuum will be your best friends during this part of the interior detailing process, as they help you get dirt, dust, and crumbs out of hard-to-reach places. Small brushes, like paint brushes, can also come in handy. Use a spray-on cleaner to clean the interior surfaces.
Seats
The method of interior detailing you use for your seats depends on the material used to cover them.
Fabric
Fabric-upholstered seats have an easier interior detailing process than leather. It can be cleaned the exact same way you cleaned your carpets. Scrub fabric shampoo designed for interior detailing into the seats without soaking them. A wet-vac may produce better results with less effort.
Leather
There’s a lot that can go wrong with interior detailing leather. For that very reason, many people tend to opt for professional interior detailing exclusively when they have leather seats. As with other seats, you want to start by going over the seats with a vacuum and brush to remove all loose dirt and crumbs.
A microfiber cloth can also assist this process in hard-to-reach areas. Using leather cleaner, scrub the seats thoroughly with a soft-bristled brush, wiping dry with a microfiber cloth upon completion.
Detailing Tips for Keeping Your Interior Detailing Looking Pristine
There are a few things you can do to help preserve your interior detailing for longer.
- Park in the shade to allow the shampoo to soak in and do its job rather than drying too quickly.
- Always follow mixing suggestions on the bottle of your solution.
- If you can’t handle this yourself, call the professionals at Mobile Detailing Pros.
