How To Remove Mold from Car Upholstery

How To Remove Mold from Car Upholstery

A number of your car’s odor problems may have been caused by the growing mold, particularly in your upholstery. Mold starts breeding there because perhaps you failed to properly clean up a spill or when you tried to detail your car, you were not able to permit your upholstery to dry up thoroughly.

Of course, you should not let the mold in your car upholstery left unattended. You should get rid of it for health reasons.

Also before beginning, consider doing a overall health of car using OBD scanner. As it can pickup important information about car engine that need to be addressed before things get worse.

Anyway…

Here are some useful suggestions on how you can remove that annoying mold from your car upholstery:

Find out where the mold is actually breeding. Begin searching on the visible areas. Check out the stained areas. Then, widen your scan.

Most often, you may see them thriving on the bottom of your car’s seat. You may also have them just behind the cloth that conveniently covers our car’s seat. You may also consider smelling your car’s upholstery.

Once you sense a strong musty odor, you are most probably close to the area where mold grows.

Get moist out of your car. Moist serves as a feeding ground for mold. If your car is completely dry, you literally kill the mold.

To start cleaning your car, move it into a well-ventilated area. Leave the doors open. This allows your car’s upholstery to dry and for the air to go in and out.

Gear up properly. You should wear gloves and a HEPA filter mask. You can easily get them from your neighborhood store.

Prepare your cleaning solution. You need to combine vinegar and water. They should have equal parts.

Get rid of the mold. Apply your vinegar-water solution to the areas where you found mold. You can apply the solution using a piece of clean rag or clothing.

When the mold or the stain is stubborn, apply more solution. You may even scrub the area with your rag or clothing. The action should readily kill the mold in your car’s upholstery.

Then, get another piece of rag or cloth to completely dry the areas you have just covered. Make sure that you don’t throw the rag or the cloth anywhere. You seal it in a plastic bag before you dispose or throw it away.

Further protect your car’s upholstery. Visit your auto parts store. Check out for mold cleaners. Reliable brands include Oxy-Mold and InstaGone Car Upholstery Cleaner.

They are made for your specific need. You may want to spray the cleaner on the surfaces where you removed the mold and then quickly scrub those areas using a reliable brush.

You may spray as many times as you wish. However, don’t let your upholstery to become too wet. It may create another breeding ground for mold.

Also good advice by this guy who uses different agents to remove mold from car…

After getting rid of the mold from your car’s upholstery, your car is good as new. You may want to install an air filter in your car if you don’t have one now.

You may also want to have a wet/dry vacuum to take care of any spill in the future.

Need more help on removing mold from car’s interior? See this WikiHow resource.

Finally after cleaning car externally, make sure it’s 100% healthy inside the engine using a car diagnostic kit.

How To Remove Mold from Car Upholstery
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5 Responses to How To Remove Mold from Car Upholstery

  1. Only 3 ingredients are requiered – soap flakes, borax and boiling water… for guaranteed upholstery removal in car.

    1: grate a bar of soap to make 6 tbsp of soap flakes. And yes, I did use the kitchen grater, but no problem. I cleaned it before using for food.

    Then mix the soap flakes and borax together, add in the boiling water, then stir to dissolve.

    The only pain about this recipe, is one has to wait for everything to cool before using the cleaner, but one should likely clean out the rest of the car first, and shampoo the upholstery as the very last addition.

    When the cleaner is totally cool, whip it into a foamy consistency and it’s ready to use.

    Start by brushing the cleaner onto the car upholstery with a bristle brush. Please only work on one seat at a time, because you don’t want the soap to just sit on the fabric and start to dry.

    At this point, the recipe told me to wipe the soap away with a damp sponge, but I do not agree. It only smears the soap and makes a worse job.

    A wet rag that you can keep rinsing in a bucket of water is safest way, and worked smoothly.

  2. Where else can I learn to make, install, repair, replace or modify the seats, upholstery, linings (roof and door linings), interior trim and floor coverings of a vehicle?

  3. OR you can fill the bottle of spray with white distilled vinegar and soak the areas of the upholstery, including the rug where the mold spores were removed.

    Spray beyond the moldy spots to destroy any wandering spores. Let the vinegar soak in for at least 15 minutes.

  4. What is the best way to remove the old that is under the carpet; on the hidden seatbelts; under the gear shifter??? Please help. Thank you so much in advance.

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