Hi All,

I know that this will have been covered before but can't find the topic by searching (brought up 400 results!). Can anyone either advise me or direct me to advice on how to successfully clean my mk 1 octy vrs seats please?

I've tried 'groom' foam cleaner on a test patch - stained.

Last car was a Furby VRS which I covered the seats in from day 1 ('Hatchbag' from Wirral) - stayed immaculate and was a real plus when selling. These however (driver's seat particularly) already dirty when I bought the Octy 2nd hand. Having just polished her up lovely and wanting to shampoo the carpets next I'm scared to death of having a go at the seats and ending up with those water mark type stains all over the silver mesh inserts.

Please help?!

cheers,

Blindhorse (Faces fan).

I use some vanish stain remover (in the pink squirt gun) in a washing up bowl diluted with plenty of warm water. Use one of those little plastic scrubbing brushes designed for fingernails, and apply the mixture very sparingly on the white sections of the seats

Then dry asap with a hair dryer or leave all doors open if its a hot sunny day.

The key to avoiding the stain marks is to dry it thoroughly straight away as the foam underneath the fabric will retain the water if you don't, then it gives you those horrible brown stains

The other option is one of those rug doctor type things with a hoover attachment, but again you have to have a hair dryer or something to thoroughly dry the seat as quickly as possible.

For the black leather sections I just use Megs Gold Class leather cleaner.

Edited 3 August, 201015 yr by chicken_eyebrow

I've had good results with Autoglym's High Foaming Upholstery Cleaner (currently buy-one-get-one-free in Halfords).

As stated, you need to dry thoroughly afterwards, and do one panel/area of the seat at a time. Last time I used it I just foamed one section, left for a few minutes, then worked the area hard with a damp microfibre cloth. That lifted the grime onto the cloth. Then dried with another MF cloth, hoovered the area, then finally used a hairdryer. This brought Fabia vRS seats back to new again, in about 10 mins a seat.

Then an idea is to track down some ScotchGuard and apply that. They should never really get dirty again as they'll have a layer of protection, much like you'd do with wax on bodywork. I've found the proper trade stuff on eBay before.

Steve

Here you go, Halfords links:

Hi-Foam

Interior Shampoo too, for more general areas. This works a bit better on say the edging to the mats (were white on the Fab, not sure about the Octy)

You can even reserve online and collect in-store.

Worth a look

Thanks very much for the advice chaps. Especially the drying aspect which I'd never thought about - I'll give it a go and have the missus's hairdryer ready.

thanks again,

blindhorse.

Thanks for the tips. Just bought a Mk1 Octy VRS estate and it's in need of a damn good clean!

heres a link to scotchgard protector , it would defo help keep it clean.

My link

heres a link to scotchgard protector , it would defo help keep it clean.

My link

Thanks furn. Will do after I've cleaned them - not stopped raining here since I 1st posted so I've not done the job yet!

Use a vax type cleaner on mine with no water staining.

Use a vax type cleaner on mine with no water staining.

Taa Lah

Hi,

Ive been working on my mk1 vRS seats just yesterday using autoglym interior shampoo as recommended on here. Very pleased with the result, got all the crap and stains off except for the door cards where it faded it substantially, but to get it looking mint will need another application. I did however initially get the dreaded water stains which looked awful. In the end I decided to cover the whole area with the shampoo to try and avoid it and it worked much better. Plus it got a load of crap off the rest of the mesh, as after all if you are going to clean the seats you may as well clean the lot as there will be grime in there which is evenly spread from general wear. The seats have now come up a treat and altho the water marks are still there very,very slightly its a whole lot better and the clean silver mesh against the leather looks bright and clean and really stands out..will be treating the leather tomorrow Conversely to what others are saying, I found that drying with a hair dryer actually made the stains worse, but maybe thats just me :S It was a hot day so I opened all the doors and it all dried great ready for vacuuming.

If you are going to do the whole of the seat and door cards, use small squirts of the spray that meet and completely cover the area. If after wiping the mesh with a damp cloth as per the instructions, you find that the fabric is starting to fray, you can sort this pretty effectively with a pair of nail scissors, first horizonally then at about an 80 degree angle carefully snipping the edges at the seam of the leather. Sounds a bit OCD maybe but its really made all the difference and my dirty frayed seats now look great

Edited 2 September, 201015 yr by LMR