Your Interior Detailing steps

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Rtrick87

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I know there’s other similar posts, but this is 2018 and I’m trying to see what different people are doing for steps while doing the interior.




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Vacuum carpets
Vacuum dash and interior vinyl with vacuum brush attachment
Shampoo carpet
Wipe interior plastic
Clean seats
Apply interior vinyl conditioner
Glass
Vacuum up the carpet shampoo
Odor neutralizer
 
Because I do many of these jobs by myself, I do the car in quarters (plus the hatch area if applicable last).

I remove the mats and slide both seats forward.

I grab my leather cleaner/conditioner (if necessary), plastic/vinyl cleaner/conditioner, vacuum hose, kneepad, carpet shampoo, scrub brush, assorted brushes, terry towels, put them in my bag and head to the rear of the vehicle.

I then vacuum the carpet and a little more than half the back seat. I then shampoo the carpet and the seat until all staining is removed. If the seating is leather, I clean and condition the leather. I scrub all the plastics clean. I do the back of the front seats at this time as well. I do the rear of the center console.

Then I go to the other rear seating area and repeat.

I then go to the front seat on that side, slide the seat back, and repeat.

Then move to the front seating area on the other side and repeat.

Vacuum and shampoo the mats. If they're rubber, I treat them with the cleaner I use on tires and scrub them with a stiff brush and water. I save the rinsing for when I rinse the car after washing.

If the vehicle has a hatch, I then do that last.

I deodorize the vehicle and the mats and then reinstall the mats, touch up anything that I may have missed, revacuum quickly to make it look perfect and call the inside done. If I'm washing the car too, which I usually am, I close it up and do the outside.

I get very good results using this method and it is also extremely fast because I'm not spending a lot of time retracing my steps. At first it seems daunting to complete all the tasks in one section, but after you've done it a few times there's a real good flow to this method.
 
I’m not sure if you meant “steps” because I don’t think the steps would really change over the years.

Products change for sure.

Steamers and extractors have been around for a while. There are those that like to use a scrub brush attachment for the DA and people that have the air power to use Tornador cleaning guns.

The order of steps can be different and I like to see how others go about it.


My general steps in order are:

Vacuum whole interior well while agitating with a brush. Stiff one for carpets, and a round detail brush and toothbrush for the dash and plastics.

Clean windshield and top of dash, then work my way down the dash. I’ll pre wet funky cup holders and other needed areas then too.

Then I clean each seating area section by section. I usually start in the drivers seat, then go to the back seats, trunk, and then finish in the front passenger seat.

I start with a clean rag and do the door glass and surround and then work down. Clean headliner if needed. Clean kick area or seat backs and lower plastics. Spot clean floor. Clean seat and move to the next area. I clean the seat last because that is where I sit while I clean the other areas.

Protection at the end and then a light vacuum for anything that was kicked up while cleaning.

Double check the glass.

Floor mats get done early or late in the process depending on how bad they are.

I will also “start” on cleaning the floor carpet early if it is bad. I pretreat and agitate occasionally if needed as I clean other areas.
 
My "steps" are setup like they are to keep from re-introducing dirt into the previous step. If I did quadrants of the car, I feel like I would track dirt from a dirty quadrant into a clean one.

Always gotta do glass AFTER putting dash conditioner on! The applicator or my hand always hits the glass and leaves a smudge.

I use a tornador for carpets so that's one reason I want to get that done first because on really dirty cars it can blast dirt around.

I always vacuum in a quadrant system so I don't drag a dirty vacuum hose through the interior. Same for any extension cords.
 
Mantilgh said:
I’m not sure if you meant “steps” because I don’t think the steps would really change over the years.

Products change for sure.

Steamers and extractors have been around for a while. There are those that like to use a scrub brush attachment for the DA and people that have the air power to use Tornador cleaning guns.

The order of steps can be different and I like to see how others go about it.


My general steps in order are:

Vacuum whole interior well while agitating with a brush. Stiff one for carpets, and a round detail brush and toothbrush for the dash and plastics.

Clean windshield and top of dash, then work my way down the dash. I’ll pre wet funky cup holders and other needed areas then too.

Then I clean each seating area section by section. I usually start in the drivers seat, then go to the back seats, trunk, and then finish in the front passenger seat.

I start with a clean rag and do the door glass and surround and then work down. Clean headliner if needed. Clean kick area or seat backs and lower plastics. Spot clean floor. Clean seat and move to the next area. I clean the seat last because that is where I sit while I clean the other areas.

Protection at the end and then a light vacuum for anything that was kicked up while cleaning.

Double check the glass.

Floor mats get done early or late in the process depending on how bad they are.

I will also “start” on cleaning the floor carpet early if it is bad. I pretreat and agitate occasionally if needed as I clean other areas.
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Sorry misworded jt. Meant it to say something like have your detailing steps changed over the years.


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I typically start off by removing all the mats and using the air compressor to loosen stuff up and to blow loose stuff out from under the seats and from between them. Then I blow out the door kick panels and vents (takes maybe 7mins)

If the carpets aren’t bad, I start with the dash and plastics. If the carpets are bad, I vacuum up the loose stuff first and then use the attachment with the brush for a more deeper vacuum.

After vacuuming, I’ll clean the leather, if no leather then I’m still vacuuming and then I do the seats first as they take longer to dry then the floors and no one wants a wet ass when they get their car back. After the initial vacuum, I will attach a brush to my polisher make sure I got everything. Revacuum

Then I shampoo the carpets and seats. And mop up what I can and then revacuum, add a fan to speed up drying.

Clean the windows and finally run a ozone generator or odor bomb while I clean the floor mats, trunk then pack up.




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First step for me is to maddog the preclean - blower and vacuum to get all the dry, nonstuck crud out. I don't want to get anything wet that I can efficiently get out dry.

The steps after that, depend on how dirty the car is. I will tend to go over surfaces in layers before having to go back over a finished surface. I need finished to be finished.
 
I might try Sudsmobile's method this weekend. I get tired of going round and round for each step.
 
Just to share what I did with detail a couple of days ago and guess what I used to clean the carpet mats... my kid's baseball bat - about 2 ft long. I was hitting the mats to get rid of all our almost all the dirt and sand! So effective!

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KirkH said:
My "steps" are setup like they are to keep from re-introducing dirt into the previous step. If I did quadrants of the car, I feel like I would track dirt from a dirty quadrant into a clean one.
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Everybody has their own system. My system works for me, there's nothing wrong with it or any other system that works. I will say one of the killers of efficiency is unwillingness to learn a new way of doing something.

I will say this, it doesn't seem like you understand what I wrote. How in the world would one "track dirt" from a dirty section to a clean section? Once you completely clean a quadrant, you're done in that section. I'm not going back to that section except to put the mats in. That's kind of the point of the system. Tackle one quadrant 100% and move on. Give it a try sometime, you might find that you've learned something because your feelings on the subject are way off base.
 
Jon TDS said:
Just to share what I did with detail a couple of days ago and guess what I used to clean the carpet mats... my kid's baseball bat - about 2 ft long. I was hitting the mats to get rid of all our almost all the dirt and sand! So effective!

Sent from my Mi A1 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I use the back of the long brush that I use to scrub wheel wells. You're right, it works great.
 
DMW said:
I might try Sudsmobile's method this weekend. I get tired of going round and round for each step.
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Once you get your process down, it's a real time saver. I carry everything with me in a detail bag. Takes me a couple minutes to get setup and I'm working. And, to reiterate, you're working from one section, making it 100% clean and then moving to a dirty section. No chance to reintroduce dirt from a dirty section to a clean section because you're only going from clean to dirty, not dirty to clean. The standard method, which has you moving around the car multiple times in circles, has you moving from dirty sections to clean sections. Inefficient.
 
sudsmobile said:
Everybody has their own system. My system works for me, there's nothing wrong with it or any other system that works. I will say one of the killers of efficiency is unwillingness to learn a new way of doing something.

I will say this, it doesn't seem like you understand what I wrote. How in the world would one "track dirt" from a dirty section to a clean section? Once you completely clean a quadrant, you're done in that section. I'm not going back to that section except to put the mats in. That's kind of the point of the system. Tackle one quadrant 100% and move on. Give it a try sometime, you might find that you've learned something because your feelings on the subject are way off base.
Click to expand...

I'm not criticizing, I just don't think that it would work for me because i use a tornador. If I clean the rear passenger side, then I move to the rear driver's side, the tornador could blow dirt from the dirty driver's side to the clean passenger side. In fact if youve ever used a tornador on dirty carpet, it does blast dirt all over the adjoining trim. That's why i always do carpet before trim, with the tornador.
 
Yes, that would definitely create an issue. One of the things that keeps me from using one is the fact that carrying a large enough compressor is tough for me. The space, the noise, the power demands all add up to probably never going to happen. I'd love to try one though. However, I think my next big purchase is a steamer.
 
Jon TDS said:
Just to share what I did with detail a couple of days ago and guess what I used to clean the carpet mats... my kid's baseball bat - about 2 ft long. I was hitting the mats to get rid of all our almost all the dirt and sand! So effective!

Sent from my Mi A1 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Guys used to post on here about the great results they got using the vibrating style of woodworking sanders to do similarly. I don't remember what they put on the Velcro to make them not stick.
 
Oh yeah I saw that in YouTube. Hand sander I think. Good for the floor liners. Need to buy from harbor freight!

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I do the same process no matter how good or bad the interior is.

I put both front seats forward all the way and middle row if it's a 3 row suv and start in the back with compressed air and blow forward and vacuum ,,I then scrub down the carpets and seats and extract whatever needs it.again starting rear to front to as I finish the seats go back to their natural positions.

I then do the dash,door panels center console etc with the absolute less effort needed to make them clean and I do the windows last then I do the trunk or hatch area if it's a car.

this process takes me less than an hour normally but I have had really dirty cars that have taken me 5 to 8 hours.

I should mention that before the interior I do my exterior washdown,motor compartment and jambs so if I get a splash or 2 of water inside the car it's no big deal as it will be addressed when I do the inside.
 
KirkH said:
In fact if youve ever used a tornador on dirty carpet, it does blast dirt all over the adjoining trim. That's why i always do carpet before trim, with the tornador.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I learned real quick that a tornador makes a mess and it needs to be step one. Its unreal how much debris it will blow out of carpet, even after its just been vacuumed.

Why passenger side first? I would think I want clean driver's seat first to allow it to dry
 
The best solution for sand and dirt in floor mats is the brush attachment on my DA, holding the mats against my thigh and running the polisher. The vibrations and the brush get rid of so much of that dirt it’s awesome.


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