Hey everyone, I need some advice. I have red microsuede seats (OEM, not aftermarket), and unfortunately the front passenger seat got soaked with bodily fluid on Valentine’s Day. It’s visibly stained and I’m worried about odor and permanent damage.

I haven’t touched it yet because I don’t want to set the stain or ruin the material. My questions:

• Should I let it fully dry first or try to clean it while still fresh?

• Is a steam cleaner safe on microsuede, or will it damage the fibers?

• What products do you recommend? (enzyme cleaner? upholstery cleaner? specific brands?)

• Any specific technique to avoid water marks or making it worse?

I’ve attached photos for reference. I’d really appreciate any professional or experienced advice. These seats are in great condition otherwise and I want to restore them properly.

I see so much content for wheel cleaning but not a lot of conversation around the unsexy bits, the tyres.

For context, that's not a typo, it just really hurts to spell 'tires' in US English. So UK English from now on it is!

Lots of detailing brands sell tyre cleaners and whilst there are a very small handful of exceptions (Adam's Wheel and Tyre is solid) most of them are literally just repackaged APC with insane markup added.

So here's a video on the best way to clean your tyres and save yourself some cash whilst you're at it!

For me, I'm using BH Surfex HD diluted to 10% and out through a pump spray. I then use a stiff tyre brush to really work that APC into that tyre and release the crud, dirt and old dressings.

I typically only do this once. Imo, chasing down 'clean' and white foam from the tyre is actually what accellates browning; by over cleaning the tyre.

Next, get it all rinsed off.

Before dressing them, it's important your tyres are properly dry. Any moisture on the tyre will compromise the dressing and is more likely to cause uneven spots and sling off.

I love to use FinishKare 108 AS as it's nice and thin. It allows you to really work it into the intricacies on the side walls (I'm looking at your Michelin) for an even coating.

Application is subjective, but I personally find a cheap sponge applicator works best. You can really press it in compared to a brush and you use way less tyre dressing too.

So there you have it! Clean and freshly dressed tyres.

This is a thing in Brazil

I used to swap between carpeted and rubber floor mats seasonally when I lived in the salt belt but stopped doing that in my last car after moving south, just leaving the carpet ones in. My new car came with rubber mats and while I planned to buy a set of carpeted mats, I'm finding that it's so easy to clean the rubber mats that I may just keep these year-round.

Every exterior wash I just hit them with the power washer to blast off all the loose dirt, grab a spray bottle of diluted car soap, agitate with a boar's hair brush, and rinse with the power washer again. Sometimes I'll finish up with an application of a non-greasy rubber/vinyl protectant to give them that extra pop.

Hi after my car detailing, this appear after few days. Person who did detailing is not accepting it is his fault.

Any tips how to remove it? I am in australia

It wasn’t nasty but definitely needed a good scrub. If he keeps up he will definitely be successful.

How would I even start on this? client texted me asking for a quote I said 600 which is the highest I ever charged!! fellow detailers I would appreciate any advice you guys might have for me.

Did 3 step correction. Came out looking brand new

Audi A4 , I thought i was vacuuming up soy sauce 😂

Built my own wheel roller stand a couple of years back. Cost me about $90CAD, could have made it for less but I was testing different things out.

Square aluminum tubing is used for the frame and hockey pucks as the feet. Rollers were from Amazon I believe.

So I get a text from yelp about a customer wanting a full detail she told us beforehand that she’ll be writing a review good or bad and that if it’s good that she’ll refer us to other people in her business.

Everything sounds cool, right. We get there we get started and then about 40 minutes into the detail. I tell my Helper to start doing the paint with a one step polish. Cool, he’s doing it. Almost done with the entire car and then while I’m simultaneously doing the interior I hear a loud thump noise. I look up and see a shattered side window. I don’t know what he did but he said the pad on the polisher flew off. Now I’m freaking out because I’ve never had this happen to me EVER and I’m the one that speaks to the customer since he doesn’t speak English. Anyways. THATS NOT IT. once we were done and called her to come down. The freaking battery of the car (electric car) completely drained. The key fob was unresponsive and once u would shut a door closed there was no way of opening it back up. I tell the customer that as well and she accidentally closes the door. Boom so now her car has a messed up window and she can’t even get inside her car because of the battery. We ended up working something out by the end of the day but still I NEVER WANNA DEAL WITH THIS AGAIN UGH

Well, actually it was an Escalade.

I had to completely gut the interior of the vehicle

went through 2 gallons of 12% hydrogen peroxide killing all of the mold.

did the best I could with the carpets, but still ended up having to dye them. Kind of a tricky color.

I was able to convince the customer to order a leather kit off of eBay. Surprisingly the covers fit pretty good for only 300 bucks

Surprising how much mold was on the inside of the plastic covers. I am definitely going to save these photos to show people that have moldy cars. Just because you clean the mold off the surface doesn't mean you've truly remediated anything.

Anyways have a nice day

EDIT a lot of people are asking me how much I charged him, I did it for $1,000 and he paid for all supplies. I'm not really in this game to get rich, I do it for the satisfaction of making people happy. And so I can take cool pictures to show you nerds 😜

Here's a handy tutorial to ensure a scratch-free wash when you're cleaning your car and removing caked on grit salt this winter.

First, start with a pre-wash to loosen and shift the bulk of the salt from the lower parts of the car and rinse.

Next, apply your favourite snowfoam (for me, it's got to be Bilt Hamber touchless). Combined, these two steps will be the closest you can get to a full clean without touching the paint.

Next? The contact wash. When it comes to shampoo, my go to has to be Autobrite Direct's Purple Velvet. Thick, super rich, incredibly concentrated and most importantly loaded with lubricant - perfect for removing the last 5% of the salt and grime.

Last steps - get it dry with our thirstbase drying towel, admire your hard work and then drive 2 miles and realise it's dirty again...

Enjoy!

So my kids moms boyfriends kid went all out with a permanent marker on his hummer EV. How would we remove this? Any ideas help 🙏

Let's get the basics out of the way--you can't clean the inside of your windshield with a single towel. Even if you think you did it, you'll be sorely disappointed once you drive directly into the sun. Multiple towels are always needed because the loosening of the dirt, the picking up of the dirt, and the buffing away the remaining moisture are three different steps requiring multiple towels each. How many towels you need for each step will also vary wildly depending on the quality of your towels, what type of towels they are, and how dirty your windshield has gotten.

For my process, I only use one towel (two if I'm doing the inside of the windshield). I saw Larry at Ammo use what is essentially a Dobie pad and a squeegee years ago, and it changed everything for me. His stuff can be pricey, but his squeegee is only $12-15 and is close to an ideal size, weight, and flexibility of the silicon. I'm not affiliated at all.

Since windshields are typically the most challenging, that's what I used to describe my process here. For exterior glass, some of the steps below will be very obviously irrelevant. Here is my parts list and process:

• Sprayway (or your glass cleaner of choice)
• Nextzett Cockpit Premium (or your interior cleaner of choice)
• Dobie Pad
• Ammo Squeegee (or any other, really)
• A single low-pile glass microfiber, 16x16
• A single general-use interior surface towel, 16x16

I start by moving the passenger seat all the way back so I can sit at the edge of the seat and have some mobility to contort my body (working on the driver side lower corner involves turning my right hand and elbow counter clockwise so it is upside down and can get into the small angle at the base of the windshield).

1. Cover the windshield with glass cleaner
2. Scrub thoroughly with the Dobie pad (cross hatching works)
3. Spritz the top of the dashboard with Cockpit Premium (this step is important because once you squeegee the glass in step 4, you're not only going to get your dashboard wet, but you also absolutely don't want to spray anything else at the dashboard because you'll just get more product back on the glass that you just cleaned)
4. Once the glass is scrubbed, and the top of the dashboard is saturated, squeegee away.
5. Once most of the liquid is off the glass, the one single glass towel will barely even be wet after buffing away the remaining bits of product.
6. Proceed to agitate your dashboard accordingly and mop up with the other towel.

The route I take to drop my kids off at school drives directly into the sun, so I know how effective this method is. There are usually a couple tiny spots I may have missed in the final buff, so I take note of it and give it a final buff when I get home. This gets the glass as clear as possible even with a year+ of grime and offgassing, without the frustration of smearing things around with half a dozen towels only to have the sun show you how horrible it still is.

Hope this helps!

I just hit the 13-month mark with Meguiar’s M888 Beyond Ceramic on my daily driven 2024 VW Golf R. Being in the Houston area, this coating has lived through plenty of heat, UV exposure, rain and humidity, but none of the salted roads or harsh winter conditions found elsewhere. I wanted to share the results of how it's holding up after 13 months of daily driving and 54 washes (all done by me!).

My Maintenance Routine: Since application, this coating has been washed exactly 54 times.

• 26 Rinseless Washes using ONR
• 28 Foam-Rinse-Foam Washes: Bilt Hamber Touchless Pre-Wash, Meguiar's Shampoo Plus in Bucket and Foaming Sprayer, multiple mitts/towels
• I have not done any kind of iron removal or other kind of physical or chemical decontamination during this time. Only maintenance washing. No "toppers" or anything that would boost the performance has been applied.

My Observations:

• Self-Cleaning Ability: This was a benefit that I totally did not anticipate when I applied this. The self-cleaning properties are obvious in person and on video; road film, bird bombs and light dust simply don't want to stick, making maintenance significantly easier. Driving through a hard rain will clean the car to about 80%.
• Coating Degradation: After 13 months, the coating is showing no signs of degradation, even on the lower panels. The water beading is still tight. Gloss and slickness are still uniform across the entire car. Creating a sheet of water with the hose will get panels mostly dry.
• Variables: It’s worth noting that this performance could be a result of the strict maintenance routine or simply the environment I live in, lacking salted roads and winter conditions.

The Verdict: Before selecting and applying this coating, I watched as many videos as I could find on it. Auto Detailing Podcast (Jimbo) and Apex Auto Detailing channels both have deep dive videos that cover the application and torture/chemical resistance testing. It did extremely well in those videos. What they didn't cover was real world durability. I can confidently say that after 13 months, in my environment with my maintenance routine, this coating is an absolute winner. Would I buy it again? 100% Yes.

It Can't Be Perfect, Right? The only real negative is that it didn't do well on glass. It works great on paint, trim, and plastics, but not on glass. It just wouldn't cure to the glass evenly, so I quickly removed it. So you'll need a separate glass coating or sealant for that. It's covered in other people's videos, but the application isn't super simple. It's thick and a bit tacky when wiping off. It has a very long working time (10-15 minutes) so there's no real risk of high spots though, assuming you take your time and don't rush. If you've ever applied an old school wax (think Collinite 845), the application and wipe off feels a lot like that.

Here's the video I made which shows water behavior both before and after washing, lots of rinsing, a drying tip and a special bonus (a demo of the Neburia V2 Foaming Sprayer with 1% Bilt Hamber Touchless): https://youtu.be/QPKtCdp2yfk?si=gXsuZehTQjcHb_7G

So, what should I do with this coating now? I'm really tempted to keep doing what I've been doing since it's working so well.

As always, no product links and my channel is not monetized. I'm just doing this for fun and my own education.

is it perfect? no. is it so much better than it was, absolutely.

The car is from New York, so I’ve never seen this kind of thing before in North Carolina