Auto Detailing FAQs | Cleaning removable car mats

Adventures in Detailing recently (this morning) recleaned another services (which will remain nameless) removable car mats. They had paid some attention to them, but the mats were still heavily soiled.

Equipment/Supplies used:

• pressure washer (or hose if unavailable)
• nylon carpet brush
• all-purpose cleaner (or carpet shampoo)
• terri cloth (not used in this instance, but may be used wipe up foam or agitate light stains)

If your vehicle is used as a “Soccer Mom” van or something similar where the mats are going to get heavily soiled, when you decide to clean them (assuming you want to get out as much of the c#@p out of them as you can, it’s probably a good idea to remove them from the vehicle & clean them on a nice hard service where the runoff can feed your grass or flowers.

A good technique here would be to saturate the areas of heavy staining, then immediately mist the entire mat with an all-purpose cleaner or carpet shampoo. Use a carpet brush with nylon bristles & agitate the heavily soiled areas with brisk scrubbing, your stain should disappear under a mass of stain colored foam (unless you are using a low-foam cleaner with a hot-water extractor…different procedure); then quickly brush over the rest of the mat. When you are done, get your pressure washer*** & spray (either as a fan or orbiting nozzle) into the mat in overlapping lines. You should see the dirt or stain color coming out in the wash. Continue until the water run-off is clear.

***Some things to look out for:

• watch where you are spraying! the water from your pressure washer will bounce. are you spraying towards your grass & plants (not too close to fragile flowers) or towards your car or wife’s clean plate glass sliding door?
• if you’re above 1800 psi keep your pressure washer at least 5″ away from the mat, the higher the psi the farther you keep the tip from your mat. It is possible to bring up the weave from the bottom of some mats with enough pressure. You do not want to do that.

Once your water run-off is clear, it is time to remove the excess water. Take the flat backside of your brush & run it firmly over the mat in overlapping lines. You may do this on the ground, or even better, against a wall (if the wall will not stain or become damaged in any way).

Now we can either let it dry in the sun or wind or without either option, put it somewhere that it will remain clean & use a fan or blower to completely dry it out.

If you have stubborn stains that have set in, there are also carpet dyes available…though it is likely the next time you clean them, the dye will come out again.

As always, please feel free to contact me.