How not to clean cloth seats

Pureshine

Pureshine

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So I this customer called me to try and fix her cloth seats that another detailer in my area trashed. I'm not sure what they used but this should've never of happened. After talking to Jeramy at Status Detailing to brian storm what it might be. I started with pretreating with Folex and used a brush and then extracted. I let dry with a fan for about an hour and then check on it. It all came back so tried again same thing even tried steam did nothing and even tried APC nothing touched it. Here is a before and after and I did a complete interior on the car also. The customer was happy with the rest of the job. In my opinion this is why you should use a dedicated product for certain things when detailing.



 
Good Lord! Did you find out what was used? Looks like bleach! Maybe someone should call this so called "detailer" and inquire about their interior process.
 
Woah. Yeah someone really messed that cloth up.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using AG Online
 
Looks like a reaction between seat foam and whatever cleaner the last "detailer" used. I've seen it happen a few times but not enough to know for sure. Only way to remedy it is to remove the cloth seat covering from the seat frame and launder it separately. Worst case scenario is that the fabric covering will have to be replaced.
 
spiralout462 said:
Good Lord! Did you find out what was used? Looks like bleach! Maybe someone should call this so called "detailer" and inquire about their interior process.
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No never found out what they used but it was 3 years ago.
 
Pureshine said:
No never found out what they used but it was 3 years ago.
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This leads me to believe they did it themselves and are trying to blame it on a previous detailer. I see this all the time. I would have passed on this job, lest I get blamed as well. 100% agree to have a dedicated product for each job.
 
I think they are lying to you. Look at the way the marks are on the seat. They are mainly where the person sits. I say that someone sat on these seats with wet swimming trunks after getting out of an over chlorinated pool.
 
TundraPower said:
This leads me to believe they did it themselves and are trying to blame it on a previous detailer. I see this all the time. I would have passed on this job, lest I get blamed as well. 100% agree to have a dedicated product for each job.
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As sad as it is I'm sure that happens more than people realize.
 
TundraPower said:
This leads me to believe they did it themselves and are trying to blame it on a previous detailer. I see this all the time. I would have passed on this job, lest I get blamed as well. 100% agree to have a dedicated product for each job.
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The job is done the customer picked up the car and where happy with the interior cleaning. They just wanted me to try and fix and this is not the first customer that has brought me car from this detailer.
 
Looks like dried soap residue. But one would think it would have steamed out. Would be surprisingly inexpensive to replace the cover. Time trying to fix this is worth more than the cost of replacement.
 
WAXOFF said:
I think they are lying to you. Look at the way the marks are on the seat. They are mainly where the person sits. I say that someone sat on these seats with wet swimming trunks after getting out of an over chlorinated pool.
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No all the seats where like this even the back ones too.
 
Picked up this tidbit by googling...makes sense!

"Over-saturation of the seats from cleaning or spills may leach out the flame-retardant chemicals used in automotive fabric. This flame-retardant is called Boron, or zinc borate. It will look like salt stains on fabric when dry after being wet. This occurrance is rare, but still be cautious. To remove the residue, try lightly extracting the fabric again and allow it to dry. This problem will be most noticeable on black or dark fabric."
 
Just02896 said:
Picked up this tidbit by googling...makes sense!

"Over-saturation of the seats from cleaning or spills may leach out the flame-retardant chemicals used in automotive fabric. This flame-retardant is called Boron, or zinc borate. It will look like salt stains on fabric when dry after being wet. This occurrance is rare, but still be cautious. To remove the residue, try lightly extracting the fabric again and allow it to dry. This problem will be most noticeable on black or dark fabric."
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I have never seen this before in 6 years so not sure if thats what it is.
 
Pureshine said:
So I this customer called me to try and fix her cloth seats that another detailer in my area trashed. I'm not sure what they used but this should've never of happened. After talking to Jeramy at Status Detailing to brian storm what it might be. I started with pretreating with Folex and used a brush and then extracted. I let dry with a fan for about an hour and then check on it. It all came back so tried again same thing even tried steam did nothing and even tried APC nothing touched it. Here is a before and after and I did a complete interior on the car also. The customer was happy with the rest of the job. In my opinion this is why you should use a dedicated product for certain things when detailing.



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Strange that the large spot at the back of the seat cushion looks like it changed from dark to light?
 
allenk4 said:
Strange that the large spot at the back of the seat cushion looks like it changed from dark to light?
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They are black seats my iphone turned them gray. Not sure why that is.
 
Pureshine said:
I have never seen this before in 6 years so not sure if thats what it is.
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I've seen it but have never taken on a problem like that! Noooo thanks! EVERY one that I saw ended up being permanently stained.
 
Just02896 said:
I've seen it but have never taken on a problem like that! Noooo thanks! EVERY one that I saw ended up being permanently stained.
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Ya when I saw it didn't think I could fix but thought I give it a shot.
 
Man that person must have found the nastiest chilli and bean stew in the world...
 
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