Cleaning water stains in headliner (sunroof leak)

[Oxen72]

I had a sunroof leak in a 2012 Volkswagen Routan (same as Chrysler Town & Country).

I'm after suggestions on how to remedy this (pictures attached). The water lines look pretty nasty ... the other areas that got wet don't look so bad.

My thought was to lightly dampen the area with ????; and, then use my Bissell AutoCare ProHeat machine to pull the dirty water out.

 

[wdmaccord]

First question...has the leak been fixed?

 

[bswombaugh]

I would try a cloth dampened with some Folex on a small area and see how it works. I have cleaned a lot of nasty spots off headliners using this method in the past. Just be careful using much heat on headliners. You run the risk of the heat loosening up the adhesive that holds the headliner up.

 

[Oxen72]

First question...has the leak been fixed?

Actually .. with complete certainty, I couldn't determine the source. The drains are clear & working fine. I tried to get it to happen again with a hose & did not have success. My best conclusion was that the drains had frozen & did not thaw quickly enough to allow rain water afterwards to drain ... which caused the water to overflow and run over the tray.

 

[wdmaccord]

I would also maybe go with something like folex on a vent brush. Then maybe some filtered/distilled water in a spray bottle to rinse out the cleaner a bit. Then dab with multiple MF's to remove the remaining residue/water (don't scrub, dab only...patience is a must with headliners).

 

[Oxen72]

So .. a no-go on using the Bissell AutoCare to pull the dirty solution out of the fabric?

 

[bswombaugh]

Whatever you do you do not want to over saturate the headliner with any kind of product. If you over soak them, the glue will release and the material will fall. You also may want to consider trying a dry foam cleaner such as Tuff Stuff.

 

[65chevy]

i have had good luck with hot shot cleaner from home depot