Why do I need to steam clean the interior of my car?
When it comes to the interior of any automobile detail, steam cleaning is something we take seriously. Steam cleaning doesn’t just clean the inside of your car- it also eliminates the bacteria that can cause illness and foul odors. We like to believe that all car owners would want to prevent allergens from spreading around their vehicle and drive in a sanitary environment.
There are also several benefits for using steam to clean the interior of your car.
The biggest one being that when you use steam to clean the interior of your car, you don’t have to use dangerous chemicals. Furthermore, steam doesn’t just hit the surface of your interior, rather it penetrates deeper into the fabric and upholstery which means that when you steam clean you’re being as thorough as you can get! Steam cleaning works on all types of surfaces and regardless of the surface type you won’t have to hand-scrub the surface since it softens and lifts dirt making it easier to remove! This is great since those hard to reach areas such as armrests, ashtrays, and cup holders can be thoroughly sanitized and disinfected.
Lastly, if you’re concerned if your car will have any scratch marks after a steam cleaning then don't worry! Unlike a tunnel car wash where there’s a chance that your car will have blemishes from the rough motions of a brush, steam cleaning negates that risk. This is because the steam that’s used to clean your interior is in a gaseous state and so there’s no surface contact whatsoever.
So now that you know why you need to steam clean your car, let’s break down how we’ll steam clean your car. Depending on the surface that is being steam cleaned, we’ll use the tool that is appropriate for that surface.
We typically start with your car’s carpets and upholstery.
First, we vacuum the carpets and upholstery with a crevice vacuum tool in order to thoroughly remove as much dirt and dust, so that way our steam cleaning will be more effective. Next we use a bristled triangular brush and add it to our steam cleaner in order to engage the surface and loosen any dirt that’s deeply embedded. Using our triangular brush, we start the steam cleaning process as we gently guide the tool over the surfaces. We move quickly enough to ensure that the steam doesn’t pile up in one place, so that the surface of the carpet doesn’t get too wet. Lastly, we’ll vacuum the carpets and upholstery again to remove any dirt loosened from those surfaces.
Then we’ll move on to the leather, plastic, and vinyl components.
For this part of the process, we use a microfiber cloth and attach it to the steam cleaner since these types of surfaces are more delicate and are more prone to getting scratched. Using this attachment we steam clean the radio display, the dashboard, the steering wheel, and the leather seats. Keep in mind that we always cover the bristles so they don’t scratch the leather. It's also worth noting that the steam helps to moisturize and rejuvenate the leather.
Finally we clean the hard-to-reach areas and the headliner of your interior to finish the process.
For those hard-to-reach areas we use a crevice tool as the attachment for our steam cleaner to get in between the seats and the console, into the cup holders, into the deep door pockets, and into the cracks and crevices. Afterwards we’ll dry the area with a microfiber cloth and vacuum the areas where steam was applied to remove the loosened dirt. The same process applies for the headliner, except that we use a microfiber cloth for our attachment tool since we need to be extra careful since if it gets too wet we could damage it. To prevent this, we move the steam cleaner around the headliner without staying in one place for too long.