Cleaning VW's

[HRD2PLZ]

We have a '01 VW Passat 4Motion that my parents are taking to their place in Scottsdale on Thursday to leave it down there. We have severely neglected this car because it has been so problematic. Any tips from the VW guys on cleaning it? I have been using a foaming cleaner and the black vinyl still looks dirty... The carpet has been vacuumed countless times with marginal improvement each time.

Thanks :thumbsup:

[nismodrifter]

By "black vinyl" do you mean plastic pieces inside the car (ie: door sills etc.?)

If so, get a brush (one of those fabric brushes with lots of bristles), get a bucket of soapy water and scrub your door sills and then wipe with a rag. For everything else (ie: dashboard) just scrub with a wet rag.

The stuff will still look "dirty" and might have a whitish/spottish appearance to it. This is annoying as hell so to top it all off use 303 Aerospace Protectant (get it from Canadian Tire, $13 for the bottle) and apply that on all the plastic pieces (door sills, dash, center console area, basically anything that is textured). Bing bam boom...the car will look like NEW!! Not a greasy look either.

[HRD2PLZ]

^^^ yeah, it seemed no matter what I did I couldn't get the interior plastic clean, so many fine grains. I ended up using 303 on the car because of the non-greasy, no gloss finish.

I never realized how much of a different interior (to clean) this car was compared to my TL and 4runner :rofl: the Passat actually took work!

It looks much better now... good enough for them to use for a couple of years until they stay down there for longer periods.

Thanks for the tips :)

[Mitsu3000gt]

Mothers Leather Cleaner belive it or not can take about any dirt or stain off of vinyl/leather/plastic with a toothbrush.

Mark

[sputnik]

Spend the money and take it to a good detailer.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by sputnik
Spend the money and take it to a good detailer.

For the price of a very good detail, you can almost buy all the products they use including the power polisher and then you can do it yourself and have everything left over to do it 5 or 6 more times. If you can't be bothered, then I guess go to a detailer.

Mark

[DeeK]

I used to work at Northland VW as a detailer.

Everything has pretty much been covered cept for the carpet..

You probably have a 12" slim attachment for your vaccuum made of either metal or plastic. Take that and put it to work... I dont mean just run it over the carpet... Take it and really wrestle the carpet.... for some reason VW carpet is alot more "intense" than most domestics I have worked on. You will probly be sweating like crazy after you tackle the carpet, if not, you are in crazy good shape, or you didnt do a good enough job lol. leather seats or cloth seats?

if cloth, repeat the same process on the seats as you did the carpet.

If leather, your car probly came with a leather cleaning kit.