Need help.. Drying out seats!

[James-W]

Hi there,

Thought id join as i have a problem with my car seats.



I have a mk5 VW Golf/Rabbit with non-leather interior.



I had a new full 5 litre bottle of engine coolant in my boot and as i was driving home the bottle casing split. All the coolant has gone all over my boot carpet and has leaked to the back seats! Im not too sure on how to dry it off.. Ive just tried wet vaccuming and awaiting results..



Does anyone have any good ideas? And any ideas to get rid of the smell!



Cheers,

James



Also be nice its my first post! :thx

[blucpe]

stick with the wet vac and when you`ve got the majority of the coolant up i would have it steam cleaned, i`m sure someone will chime in with more suggestions.

[beachcities]

That vw carpet is very low pile and a pita to vacuum thoroughly. I remove the fron seats to gain more access, put the heater in the low position and run till its dry. people will say "use an extractor", big waste of time and money. if your vacuum has good lift, it is more effective than most extractors(which have terrible lift, oversaturate carpets which draws more dirt out of the backing in the long run, and isnt even true steam). if possible id pull up the carpet, to make sure that there are no puddles of coolant in the floor pans. then get a good can of carpet cleaner, i like woolite high traffic foam and follow the directions on it. smells great and extremelly effective. good luck vw interiors are the biggest pita.

[James-W]

Thanks for the help,

Ill try and stick at it and hopefully get somewhere warm for the seats and boot carpet to dry out.



I do have an extrator though, is it worth sticking in the car over night?



I removed the boot carpet and there are no signs of any of it leaking underneath the carpet.

[Cleaning Fool]

That vw carpet is very low pile and a pita to vacuum thoroughly. I remove the fron seats to gain more access, put the heater in the low position and run till its dry. people will say "use an extractor", big waste of time and money. if your vacuum has good lift, it is more effective than most extractors(which have terrible lift, oversaturate carpets which draws more dirt out of the backing in the long run, and isnt even true steam). if possible id pull up the carpet, to make sure that there are no puddles of coolant in the floor pans. then get a good can of carpet cleaner, i like woolite high traffic foam and follow the directions on it. smells great and extremelly effective. good luck vw interiors are the biggest pita.



Operators oversaturate carpets, not the extractor.

[ezemsm444]

That vw carpet is very low pile and a pita to vacuum thoroughly. I remove the fron seats to gain more access, put the heater in the low position and run till its dry. people will say "use an extractor", big waste of time and money. if your vacuum has good lift, it is more effective than most extractors(which have terrible lift, oversaturate carpets which draws more dirt out of the backing in the long run, and isnt even true steam). if possible id pull up the carpet, to make sure that there are no puddles of coolant in the floor pans. then get a good can of carpet cleaner, i like woolite high traffic foam and follow the directions on it. smells great and extremelly effective. good luck vw interiors are the biggest pita.



Maybe extractors aren`t true steam, but 176 deg spray (heaters are rated at 210 but by the time they travel through the hoses you get heat loss, measured it) is hot enough to make any cleaning agent more effective. And i always do 1 spray pass, 2 dry pass and the carpet is mostly dry in 30 minutes.

[salty]

Thanks for the help,

Ill try and stick at it and hopefully get somewhere warm for the seats and boot carpet to dry out.



I do have an extrator though, is it worth sticking in the car over night?





Not sure what that means?



Anyways suck out as much of the coolant as you can, note the areas that it leaked.



If all you have is a wet vac, then dilute some APC = all purpose cleaner (different products have different ratios, but make sure it is fabric safe) 10 parts water to 1 part APC is a good start.



Saturate the area with diluted APC, scrub brush it in and suck out with wet vac. Do it a few times and the last 2 time use only clean water.



Let dry and smell it.

[StadiumDetail]

That vw carpet is very low pile and a pita to vacuum thoroughly. I remove the fron seats to gain more access, put the heater in the low position and run till its dry. people will say "use an extractor", big waste of time and money. if your vacuum has good lift, it is more effective than most extractors(which have terrible lift, oversaturate carpets which draws more dirt out of the backing in the long run, and isnt even true steam). if possible id pull up the carpet, to make sure that there are no puddles of coolant in the floor pans. then get a good can of carpet cleaner, i like woolite high traffic foam and follow the directions on it. smells great and extremelly effective. good luck vw interiors are the biggest pita.



My extractor has 137 degrees of lift, there is no shop vac on the market that I`m aware of that can match that.



Extractors are useful not only because of the heated water, but because of the water itself. In this case it will inject water deeper into the carpet than the wet vac will be able to lift coolant from, as well as dilute the coolant for easier removal as well. And your complaint about it pulling more dirt from the backing of the carpet is proof to this statement, cleaning the surface isn`t actually caleaning the carpet.



I operate my extrator every single day and can get carpets truly clean and dry. I absolutely HATE it when I get carpets that look clean, start to use an extractor, and instantly get crazy foaming an extra unseen dirt because someone just used a foaming carpet cleaner to clean the top layer. I spend 3x the amount of time I should be fixing the half *** job another did, with no monetary award beacuse the carpets already "looked" clean coming in.



Foaming cleaners have their place, I use them myself for spot treatments, but for a large spill in a large area like this one an extractor is needed to get the coolant out properly. It`s a chemical, it needs to be removed not just foamed over and covered up.

[teopeht]

While I agree that optimally one should do a thorough cleaning I don`t know if everyone is half assed who doesn`t have an extractor.

[StadiumDetail]

While I agree that optimally one should do a thorough cleaning I don`t know if everyone is half assed who doesn`t have an extractor.



i apologize, that isn`t what I was trying to say.



There are carpets that can be cleaned with the foaming carpet products, I even use them myself, but there are jobs that simply need to be done properly. A gallon of spilled coolant is one of those jobs that shouldn`t simply be covered up by only cleaning off the surface, the chemical needs to be removed. This can also be achieved by removing the carpet and pressure washing it, but an extractor is a much more simple answer.



The half assed job I was referring to are things I run into about once a month. I begin extracting only to have the carpet foam up on me everywhere I spray water. It keeps foaming, and keeps foaming, there is soooooooo much product in the carpets it`s crazy. If the TC was to use the method described by beachcities it would have this issue due to the amount of foam needed and the left over coolant. Or the TC would have to go through such great lenghts to dilute the coolant with water in order to make beachcities` method acceptable that his comment of extractors being a "big waste of time and money" is just absurd.



The TC needs to remove the coolant. An extractor is the second best option. Pulling the seats and carpet, presure washing them, drying them, and re-installing is the best but also a lot of work.

[Dan]

Not sure what that means?



Anyways suck out as much of the coolant as you can, note the areas that it leaked.



If all you have is a wet vac, then dilute some APC = all purpose cleaner (different products have different ratios, but make sure it is fabric safe) 10 parts water to 1 part APC is a good start.



Saturate the area with diluted APC, scrub brush it in and suck out with wet vac. Do it a few times and the last 2 time use only clean water.



Let dry and smell it.



Yep, you need to get as much of it out, then you need to flush the area with more water/APC. If its deep in the foam, you will need to get LOTS more water in there to actually get the smell out (seats are a giant sponge, and you can`t clean a sponge by just vacuuming ).

[teopeht]

i apologize, that isn`t what I was trying to say.



There are carpets that can be cleaned with the foaming carpet products, I even use them myself, but there are jobs that simply need to be done properly. A gallon of spilled coolant is one of those jobs that shouldn`t simply be covered up by only cleaning off the surface, the chemical needs to be removed. This can also be achieved by removing the carpet and pressure washing it, but an extractor is a much more simple answer.



The half assed job I was referring to are things I run into about once a month. I begin extracting only to have the carpet foam up on me everywhere I spray water. It keeps foaming, and keeps foaming, there is soooooooo much product in the carpets it`s crazy. If the TC was to use the method described by beachcities it would have this issue due to the amount of foam needed and the left over coolant. Or the TC would have to go through such great lenghts to dilute the coolant with water in order to make beachcities` method acceptable that his comment of extractors being a "big waste of time and money" is just absurd.



The TC needs to remove the coolant. An extractor is the second best option. Pulling the seats and carpet, presure washing them, drying them, and re-installing is the best but also a lot of work.



no worries, i guess i just got my panties in a bunch being a relatively new detailer who is still missing a wetvac and an extractor from my arsenal. but on the plus side, you give me stuff to put on my christmas list :P