"Fiercest" Toad Uphostery Cleaner Or Cleaning Method?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Light gray fabric and Mexico do not mix. Dirt and grime have ground their way in to make stains. Dalia's, spilled chocolate souffle surprise seemed to have an affinity for rear seat fabric.

Car parts stores? "Señor" you still have CLOTH left on your seats? Go to an upholstery shop and get everything recovered"

Then the headliner is blossoming downward with the windows down. A hypodermic needle and some unknown type of fabric cement?

This is still a 26 mpg, 3,000 miles and no 5/30 oil loss rig. And it's plenty ugly enough to make car-jacker's roll on the asphalt.

Thanks

[time2roll]

I would work something like Simple Green into the fabric and pull it out with a wet-dry vac.
Rinse with water and again pull it out with the vacuum. Don't just let it dry.

Spray-on headliner fabric cement is available at any decent autoparts store. Headliner needs to be removed and re-installed for best results.
Worst case headliner can go away... just adds to the patina 😉

[Naio]

Y'know, now that I think if it, the last one I rented hooked to a kitchen sink faucet (unscrew the aerator and screw hose on). Maybe they all do that and I am wrong about a hose bib?

That kitchen one came with a hose long enough to go out the window and to the machine on the driveway.

Might have been $30 to rent for the day?

The water does not go very deeo. Seats were dry the next morning, after a 90 degree low humidity day. I think I put a fan in the van overnight.

If your butt is wet you will be cool but you might get a rash :(.

When I was a kid we used a foam carpet cleaning goo that came in a spray can. You wipe it in with a wet rag, let dry, then dry-vacuum. But I could not for the life of me find stuff like that when I looked a few years ago. Must have turned out to be toxic ;). Anyway, I think the machine works better.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Wall-to-wall rugs are as rare as a blue-eyed iguana down here. Even in the bath they love greased teflon slick glazed tiles. Can't tell ya how much it means to take one step on a wet floor and go seventeen feet.

I've a good hunch yours is a darned effective way to go Naio. So much so, I'm going to wait until next month when I get to Chula Vista and try and rent a machine. Finding a free hose bib might be a bit of a chore. Do I need a hose too? If The Grand Plan falls flat on it's face I'll go with westend's recommendation and probably end up driving 600 miles with a wet butt. Well, it'll be a wet butt sitting on a clean seat. Dalia can eat her frozen treats outside. In 95F 70% R/H weather ever see a 12 year-old eat a 2-scoop ice cream cone in 15 seconds before it melts?

[Naio]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Jamming a vacuum-cleaner size cleaning machine into the Dodge Spirit might be entertaining - especially when I turn on the hose...

The machine sits outside and you just stick the hose in. Heck, I think that's even what we did with my van. The hoses are pretty long. You don't want the kind where you push the whole machine around like an upright vacuum!

But can you rent a machine down there?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Jamming a vacuum-cleaner size cleaning machine into the Dodge Spirit might be entertaining - especially when I turn on the hose...

Gotta order this stuff from the states. The "tapaceria" is going to be a little harder to find for the headliner. The cars down here usually break-in-two before these kinds of repairs are needed.

"Daddy, the gringo cars have funny shiny saucers on their wheels"

"Well, we're real men down here. We don't permit baches (potholes) to slow us down. Those shiny discs fly off after the first three or four baches, son"

[Naio]

PS Maybe you could hire a neighbor to run the carpet machine if it's too hard on your body? Takes about 6 hours to do my van. Your toad is prolly half the size.

[Naio]

I rent a carpet cleaning machine once a year, go over the whole rig twice. The kind that connects to a garden hose, and lets you add the cleaning product of your choice.

I hear good things about the Awesome brand of cleaners, from the dollar store. I have personally have good experience with Soilove stain remover, also at the dollar store -- or $4 on ebay. I don't know what is available where you are.

[westend]

Resolve is a good upholstery cleaner. Spray the heck out of it and let it work it's magic.

Most headliners can be detached fairly easily and 3M Extra Duty spray adhesive holds well.