Upholstery, trim, headliners and interior detailing.

Streak free windows and a cleaner and safer driving environment!

Soiled headliners, dirty seats and a untidy interior can be a driving hazard and can dramatically reduce the value of one of your most valuable assets. All these problems can be improved with a little time and by using products specifically designed for automotive interior detailing.

To fully determine the overall condition of your vehicles interior's it's best to start with a thorough top to bottom detailing, or cleaning.

Start by removable items such as floor mats, seat covers, cup holders, glove compartment contents and trunk contents. Grab a couple of environmentally friendly shopping bags and collect the months of accumulated back seat garbage and floor trash! :)

If you happen to come across any loose change... Congratulation! Not only have just made some extra car care cash, you have also discovered how professional car detailers make money! Not from detailing, but by finding all those lost treasures! Just kidding! :)

Start with the roof lining (also called "headliners") and clean down towards the floor as any dirt, fluff or dust that falls when cleaning the roof lining will be cleaned up as you get to the lower parts of the vehicle.

A crevice tool and wide extension head are essential cleaning tools for your car vacuum cleaner. Use the soft brush attachment on roof lining, inner door panels and other delicate fabric surfaces. Use a crevice extension tool to reach into recesses at the back of seats, between the seat and back supports, between the foot wells and down between the seats and console areas.

If you have a vacuum cleaner hose with a metal end attachment pipe, and you are not using plastic or brush attachments, tape some cotton based cloth around the edge of the vaccum cleaner hose pipe to avoid scratching the plastic or vinyl trim.

Next, vacuum all carpeted and cloth surfaces, or if you have vinyl headliners, aka roof lining, and trim wipe these over with a soft damp cloth to remove surface dust. If you happen to come across any spills marks or stains on the vinyl don't worry to much as most will clean away with a little warm water and mild detergent.

Next, vacuum the dashboard, rear parcel shelf, doors, seats, then lastly the floors, moving the front seats forward and back for easier access to the areas underneath them.

When vacuuming the floor carpets, use a firm brush firm-bristled scrubbing brush for agitating the carpet matte, this allows your vacuum cleaner to embedded and deep ground grit and stones out of the carpet fairly easily. Remember to vacuum and wipe over the cars boot/trunk compartment!

If you find spills or stains on any of the interior fabrics or carpets dampen a small area with a pump spray bottle of water and immediately vacuum with your wet/dry vacuum. More stubborn stains can be removed with commonly available household, upholstery and carpet cleaners. The best way to deal with any stain or spillage is to clean them up as soon as possible.

Tip: To remove dust from air conditioning/heater grills, vents, small nooks and crannies and from dash mounted devices use a semi-firm soft bristle brush (a new 1 inch paint brush is ideal) in combination with the vacuum cleaner and simply brush away the dust into the direction of the vacuum cleaner. :)

What has to be of the most frustrating and annoying tasks of car detailing must be trying to achieve streak free windows and mirrors. But once you know this one little secret you may even look forward to cleaning your vehicles windows and mirrors!... Hey! I did said "maybe!" :)

Clean the external side of the windows first, this will avoid you spending 10 minutes rubbing at a greasy window mark only to discover that it is on the outside of the window! :)

If you prefer to use a commercial spray window cleaner with a cleaning cloth ensure you use a cotton based cloth. Do not spray the cleaner directly on to the car windows, but rather, spray it on to the cleaning cotton cloth then wipe over the windows thoroughly. This will avoid the cleaning spray chemicals evaporating before you get a chance to wipe over the window.

When casually talking to a couple of professional house window cleaners at different times I found out from a couple of ticks of the trade they explained and I thought I would combine the two techniques to see how it works on my car windows. To my amazement this was and continues to be a huge success for streak free car windows and mirrors.

First, start by cleaning your windows and glass areas with mentholated spirits and newspaper. Remember to wind down your side windows and inch or so to allow you to clean right at the very top of the glass and use large cotton buds or similar to get right into the bottom corners of the fully wound up windows.

The mentholated spirits breaks down the grease, smoke residue and residue film given off by those with vinyl dashboards, while the newspaper will buff the window to a near streak free finish. You may be happy with the results this process achieves, but for perfectly streak free windows try the little tip below.

Next, mix a small squirt of normal hair shampoo (yep the stuff you find in the bathroom!) in some warm water and with a soft damp cloth wipe over your windows... allow to air dry. The result is streak free crystal clear windows! :)

When using any chemicals to clean your car interior please read and understand the application instructions and directions for use carefully.