General Information:
There are many different types of upholstry in automobiles. There is cloth, velour, vinyl and leather.Â
Tools & Technique
To clean automotive upholstery, first vacuum the surface and into the small cracks using a crevice tool. Leather and vinyl can be wiped off with an appropriate cleaner and protector. Protecting these surfaces helps keep them supple and will add years to there appeance. For liquid spills abosorb as much as possible from the surface, and on cloth or velour seats use a clean cotton rag or paper towels and apply pressure to help draw the liquid up from the foam cushion. For stains, refer to our quick reference guide describing removal of specific stains.
Tips:
For stains that are very obvious, try to pre-treat the area with soda water or even dab it with a baby wipe
does anyone have a solution for removing melted candle wax from a fabric seat inside of a car???
First, if it isn’t soy-it may be tough. Scrap excess and vacuum that up then, iron over the stain with a clean cloth-hoping that the cloth will absorb all or most of the wax. Then if it’s soy use warm soapy water. if it isn’t soy-it’s probably petroleum based so you treat it as an oil/grease stain and use a degreaser on it.
use hot air hair dryer, melts the wax then you can remove.
Always wait for wax to cool and harden before
trying to remove it. If you try to clean it up while it’s still melted or soft it only gets speared around and is
harder to clean up, especially if it’s a colored candle.
Assuming you’ve let the was cool and harden first before making an attempt to clean it up, sometimes you can simply scrape it up. Depends on how tight a weave the fabric has.
Sometimes the wax is only sitting on the surface and hasn’t
been absorbed at all.
What has worked for me is to place a paper towel over the wax, and then put a heated flat iron (no steam) on it for as long as you can without burning the papertowel. The paper towel absorbs the melted wax. You might have to do it several times before you get it all, but it really works.
I’ve used the hot flat iron/paper towel treatment on carpets and table cloths several times. Takes up the
stain from colored candles, too.
PS I just remembered that a friend of mine was successful in using the hot setting on her hair dryer..still using the
paper towel over the wax. The only problem was putting
pressure on the papertowel with her hand….the area was a little too hot for her hand but she only needed a few seconds of pressure to get her wax spill up.