Just a quickie folks,

I was considering hiring a rug doctor to clean my grubby seats in the vRS.

Mine has side airbags, will this method of cleaning be ok ?

Or will I have to find another way of cleaning them?

Thanks in advance,

Garry

Leather retrim!

Seriously though, the Rug Doctor should be ok, after all it's fine on heated seat pads. Automotive upholstery and the bits immediately underneath it are usually designed with the occasional damp-vac in mind. The airbag itself is probably a good bit beneath the surface in any case.

Another option would be to use the Rug Doctor on the non-airbag parts of the seat, and a good foaming cleaner on the airbag panels.

Rug doctor them! - what's the worst that can happen?!?! :p

Edited 10 February, 201115 yr by Gareth_1.8T

Unplug the battery whilst cleaning the seats? Might help ease your mind whilst doing it!

Edited 10 February, 201115 yr by SimonK24

An other way maybe known here is to take hot water with a little of wash machine soap (liquid) and wash seat with a micro fiber glove...and then hoover the seats, let dry and you'll have seats like it was new and a good smell of clean clothes....

Mine are reaaaaaally grubby too.

When people speak of "Rug Doctor", are you referring to http://www.morrisons.co.uk/store-finder/about-customer-services/store-services/dry-cleaning/Rug-Doctor/

???

That's the same one I did my rear seats with Mark.

Rented it to clean the carpets in a flat at the end of a tenancy and used the attachement on the rear seats of the Fabia while I had it.

Would have done the fronts too but was far too much hassle to do them with then sill in the car.

Will hire one another day and remove the seats and clean away.

As an alternative I can recommend Autogroom foaming upholstery cleaner as found in a halfords near you. Require a bit of scrubbing for deeper marks but the seats do come up lovely

Edited 10 February, 201115 yr by PastyBoy

Mine are reaaaaaally grubby too.

+1 :wonder:

Why buying expensives product, when ARIEL + hot water + patience and hand made work = new seats...!!!

rug doctor is epic!

Why buying expensives product, when ARIEL + hot water + patience and hand made work = new seats...!!!

Renting the professional equipment makes even more sense though

That's the same one I did my rear seats with Mark.

Rented it to clean the carpets in a flat at the end of a tenancy and used the attachement on the rear seats of the Fabia while I had it.

Would have done the fronts too but was far too much hassle to do them with then sill in the car.

Will hire one another day and remove the seats and clean away.

As an alternative I can recommend Autogroom foaming upholstery cleaner as found in a halfords near you. Require a bit of scrubbing for deeper marks but the seats do come up lovely

Sounds good to me. I have used Autogroom cleaner before with great results too.

With this "Rug Doctor" do you need to dry it out, or does the power of the vacuum do it?

I need to give my seats a good clean too...Mine are quite grubby :(

Be warned. Some carpet cleaning hand tools rely on the vacuum created at the head to pull the detergent from the reservoir to the head for cleaning. This works well on dense fabrics and carpets but on car upholstery the foam padding is not dense enough to create a vacuum and just pulls air through it - the basis why you dont get a sweaty crack on long summer drives

This is how a VAX cleaner works. Others might use a pumped detergent system - possibly the rug doctor does? I'm not sure.

I have a VAX. Works a treat. I just use a spray bottle to spray the seats and the wet vac to suck the fluid away. Lovely jubley - job done. For about 60 quid you can get a VAX on Amazon and you can use it regularly on the car/house/flat/curtains/sofas, or for about 90 you can get the VAX wet and dry - beast of a machine that I have. Sucks like a crack ho' and sounds like a jet. Can't be wrong

Be warned. Some carpet cleaning hand tools rely on the vacuum created at the head to pull the detergent from the reservoir to the head for cleaning. This works well on dense fabrics and carpets but on car upholstery the foam padding is not dense enough to create a vacuum and just pulls air through it - the basis why you dont get a sweaty crack on long summer drives

This is how a VAX cleaner works. Others might use a pumped detergent system - possibly the rug doctor does? I'm not sure.

I have a VAX. Works a treat. I just use a spray bottle to spray the seats and the wet vac to suck the fluid away. Lovely jubley - job done. For about 60 quid you can get a VAX on Amazon and you can use it regularly on the car/house/flat/curtains/sofas, or for about 90 you can get the VAX wet and dry - beast of a machine that I have. Sucks like a crack ho' and sounds like a jet. Can't be wrong

Saw RugDoctor at a Tesco's near me. Might give it a whirl next time.

For now... popped in to *cough*Halfords and got some more AG Interior Shampoop. Worked well enough for now. They're loads cleaner almost instantly

Though I am a rare one that likes the white seats, I am on the lookout for somewhere local to get a leather retrim (sod going all the way to York). Same design... white and black, just in leather!

Rug doctor is awesome plus u get special upholstry cleaner additive!!

My seats had oil stains and no foam cleaner would budge it! Rug doctor cleared it in 2 mins

Only draw back is seats will remain damp for around 3-4 days

Rug doctor is awesome plus u get special upholstry cleaner additive!!

My seats had oil stains and no foam cleaner would budge it! Rug doctor cleared it in 2 mins

Only draw back is seats will remain damp for around 3-4 days

Nice!! No water stains due to them being damp or anything then?

Next time they're in need of a clean I think I will try Rug Doctor. Lots of positiveness surrounding it. Hopefully it'll be summer by then too!

no...... no water marks,

i got water marks using that foam gunk though

You wont get water marks if all the seat is uniformly wet. The machine extracts the majority of the water. I have a small fan that I place in the front footwell that is directed towards the roof, then leave the a/c on recirculate for 15 mins. When I clean seats I get them dry in under 2 hrs.

My VAX was £60 and has a pump built in for the clean water so not all of them use the vacuum. It can even be used with out the vacuum so that you can saturate dirtier parts before sucking it all back out.

As for using washing machine detergent, that gets my vote. I ran out of the proper stuff so used 3 fresh coffee scoops of Wilko's finest powder and it actually cleaned the seat up better than the proper VAX stuff.. I put this down to the biological side of things breaking down the dirt.

Edited 13 February, 201115 yr by Rob.

I use an enzyme pre-cleaner that I spray on, leave for a couple of mins then extract off. 99% of the time I dont need to use any detergent as the pre-cleaner gets rid of most of the dirt.

http://www.chemspec-europe.com/shop/shopimages/PreKleenEnzSL.pdf

Great stuff

Right! Got 3 cars that need doing now. Two Fabia's and a recently acquired SEAT Arosa with a massive sick stain!

- Which detergent do people use? "Carpet Detergent", or "Upholstery cleaner" + "Anti-foam"??

- How much will I need to do 3 cars? 1L, 2L, 4L?

If you're doing 3 you may aswell rent a rug doctor thing with the car attachments from homebase.

Did a great job on mine

Which detergent did you use, and how much did you go through on one car

I use Chemspec Formula 90, you need like 30ml so not worth buying some. I can send you some if you like? I would imagine with a rug doctor you could probably do 3 cars on one tank of water, but that assuming they have a decent size tank (30-40 ltrs).

I'm looking to replace my cleaning machine with this small one. Nice and powerful for a small machine, the psi of the spray is more importand than the sucking power.

http://www.truvox.com/Products/Carpet_Cleaners/Hydromist_Lite

£200 is good value.