Car cloth floor mats, even though they look fantastic and more luxurious than most rubber mats, they can sometimes be hard to clean because they collect too much dirt, debris, and stains over time. Luckily, you can deep clean them by using a pressure washer. It’s a quick and easy procedure anyone can do, and today I’ll show you how to do it properly.
Most people prefer using carpet extractors to clean fabric floor mats, but if you don’t have one, you can get similar results by using a pressure washer. The only downside will be the drying time, which, realistically, isn’t so much big of a deal.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into this guide.
Gather Materials
First things first, you should gather all the materials required to deep clean fabric floor mats. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Vacuum
- Pressure washer (check our recommendation here)
- Reputable carpet cleaner
- A few high-quality microfiber cloths
- Brush
As you can see, only the basic equipment and materials are needed. If you like DIYing or cleaning your car at home, you probably already have them. If not, make sure to buy those since these tools will help you in so many other tasks you can DIY, even aside from cleaning your vehicle.
Prepare The Floor Mats For Cleaning
Before you start pressure washing the car floor mats, you should prepare them for cleaning. The preparation process includes removing any loose dirt and debris. Not doing this step correctly will make the whole cleaning process less effective, and some stains may not come out.
Here’s how I like to prepare car cloth floor mats for cleaning:
- Remove the mats from your car and shake them out.
- By using a vacuum cleaner, suck up any remaining dirt and debris. Pay extra attention to the edges and corners of the mats because that’s where the dirt usually accumulates.
- Spray the carpet cleaning solution onto the mats and allow it to start breaking and loosening all the dirt and stains on the mats. If you see some extremely dirty areas, pay extra attention to them and use a bit more of a product.
That’s the basic preparation you should do. Let’s now go to pressure washing car cloth floor mats part.
Pressure Washing The Mats
Now that car cloth floor mats are clean and prepped, you can start power washing them. Pressure washing is the most potent and effective way to clean stains from car floor mats because it will go deep into the fibers, and because of high pressure, it’ll successfully remove the stains.
The guide on pressure washing car floor mats:
- Place the mat on a flat surface. I prefer putting it on a driveway or a sidewalk.
- Start pressure washing from the top of the mat, working downwards in sections. Also, use a side-to-side motion, overlapping each pass slightly. That’ll ensure full coverage.
- If the mats are incredibly filthy, you may need to repeat the process and maybe even re-apply the carpet cleaning solution.
With those three steps, you’ll successfully wash car mats by using a pressure washer. The last step you should do is dry the mats. Let’s see how to do it.
Drying and Finishing
Before placing car mats back in the car, you should ensure that they’re completely dry. After cleaning them with a pressure washer, they’ll be full of water and will need thorough drying.
Firstly, try to remove as much excess water as possible by using a clean microfiber towel or a squeegee. Try to be as thorough as possible because it’ll speed up the drying process a lot.
After removing excess water, I like to hang-dry them. Just place them in a well-ventilated area and allow them to dry completely. If it’s a sunny day, it’ll probably take 1-2 hours for them to dry completely. Just make sure that both sides of the mats are in contact with air – so avoid placing them next to the wall.
Once the mats are dry, I like to use a brush to restore the fibers’ texture and make them look new again. You only need a soft-bristle brush from the dollar store, and you can do it. Make sure to go along the fibers.
Finally, when everything is finished, you can place them back in your vehicle and enjoy a more comfortable ride.
Conclusion
As you can see above, pressure washing car cloth floor mats is an effective and easy way to remove dirt, stains, and debris from mats, even if they’re trapped deep into the fibers.
Just make extra attention when prepping the mats because that’s the essential step in cleaning as many stains as possible.
