Oops, your car is really dusty in there! If you are into ride sharing, planning a date, experiencing Saharan dust, or whatever, you want to know how to remove dust from car interior. And apart from beautification, a dust-free car is important for your health.
Just like high winds, your vehicle packs dust on the way, and in cases where you leave the door open, dust infiltrates the interior. Dust can also hinder the driving experience. Suppose your car with a nice interior is dusty, your dashboard can become a dust holder. It can escape onto your and windscreen windows, thereby hindering your driving experience.
Now what? Of course, you want to get rid of dust from your window, floormat, seats, and more. You also want to ensure the breath of fresh air to avoid using a nose mask while in the car.
Things You Need to Keep Dust Off Your Car
- Soft cleaning wipes
- Nose mask (to protect your nose from inhaling dust)
- Hand gloves
- Towels
- Hose-attached vacuum cleaner
- Garden hose (if your vehicle uses plastic floormats)
- Interior leather conditioner
- Window cleaner
- Steam cleaner
- Vinyl cleaner
- Saddle soap
- Carpet cleaner
- Household cleaner
How to Remove Dust from Car Interior
It seems you are already wishing for a welcoming car interior. If that’s the case, follow the simple steps below to remove dust from your car interior?
Declutter Your Car Interior
The first step towards getting rid of dust from your car interior is to declutter it. You want to remove every extraneous property, including your gym bag, shoes, work bag, books/magazines/newspapers, audio player, toys, and stationery.
Your recyclable items, including paper, cardboard items, and bottles should also be trashed in the recycle bin to declutter the car interior for easier dusting. If getting rid of your recyclables is easy, then trashing your garbage should not be difficult.
Before you vacuum the car interior, take out the floormats to easily access the grime underneath. You can use your garden hose to rinse the floormat (if it is plastic) or vacuum or use a floor brush (if it is a carpet mat). Keep the floormats out until you completely dust the car interior.
Clean the Interior
Clean the seats and seat pocket crevices using a vacuum cleaner’s crevice equipment. For the vinyl and hard plastic areas, use your dusting brush. You need to clean the underneath of seats by moving the seats. This also gives you easier access to the hard-to-reach parts of your car interior. To clean underneath the front seat, move the seats to the front. Repeat the process from the opposite direction to access and dust the underneath of the seat from the back.
You also want to remove dust from the car seats. If your vehicle uses leather seats, ensure to use your towel to wipe it down carefully. You can use a soft brush on the tailor-thread areas to extract dust.
You also want to remove dust from your upholstered fabric seats. If using a cleaner, refer to your owner’s manual to know approved cleaners. You can use your carpet cleaner to remove dust on the upholstered fabric seats but do not use a window cleaner.
While removing dust from your car, you can remove tough stains, including chocolate, cray and oil stains, etc., using a stain remover. Do not hard brush on the stained spot or brush harshly to avoid damaging the interior finishes. If the stains are from melting crayons or candy, get rid of them with an ice cube.
Vacuum the Car Seat
You have to vacuum the interior of your vehicle from top to bottom beginning with the roof. Carefully vacuum it down to the floorwork, and reduce the vacuum pressure. Ensure to use the appropriate nozzles when vacuuming the various parts of your car interior to get rid of dust. After vacuuming from top to bottom, you can use a soft rag or foam to remove remnant dust from the seats.
Dust the Central Console, Steering, Dashboard and Gearstick
Apply a mild cleaning agent or glass cleaner on a rag and clean the center console. Dust the cleaner parts of the center console towards the dirtier areas.
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Dust other areas, including the steering wheel and dashboard carefully, wiping down the entire surface. Ensure to also wipe the inside door pockets and gearstick with the cleaner.
After cleaning the aforementioned areas, use a soft clean, and dry cloth to clean up the various cleaned parts. You can also use a cotton bud to remove dust from any hard-to-reach spot, detail the hard-to-reach parts on the steering wheel and across the center console.
The cupholders are also hard-to-clean items. Ensure to wipe them with a damp rag. If you can some difficult areas that have accumulated dust, you can use a flathead screwdriver. First, wrap a soft damp rag around the screwdriver and run it through the hard-to-reach areas to remove dust from your car.
Finally, on these parts, you detail the interior using an old soft bristle toothbrush. Target the hard-to-reach parts in interior doors and across the console.
Dust Your Interior Windows and Sunroof
When your car interior accumulates dust, it can escape onto the windows, causing a blurred vision that results in a bad driving experience.
The solution is to dust properly using a damp rag. You can dampen your rag with window cleaner or apply your window cleaner on a microfibre towel and wipe the windows. You want to avoid using ammonia for cleaning your vehicle to prevent drying out the surface plastic and damaging the windows.
You also have to clean the windshield, sunroof, rear and side windows using a microfibre towel. You want to use either a vertical, horizontal, or circular dusting/wiping motion throughout the process. Do not interchange your cleaning motion to simplify the dusting process.
Ensure to use the towel on every edge and corner of the windows and sunroof to get rid of dust. Do not flip the towel until after cleaning part or half of the windows. If necessary, you can use a different towel or additional cleaner on the windows or sunroof.
Replace the Items
At this point, you have done a great job removing dust from your car. If you aired the seats earlier, get them back inside the vehicle. If your seats or any removed interior component of the vehicle is still wet, sun-dry it. A wet component can create a bad smell in the car after a while. If it is sunny, you can leave the car doors open for a while.
When the vehicle is entirely dry, close the doors. You can place an air freshener to freshen up your now dust-free car interior. Make sure the items you return inside the car are not dusty.
Final Thoughts
With these procedures, the interior of your vehicle is now properly dusted. Always keep the doors closed to avoid dust or even insects from getting in. Meanwhile, if you already have roaches in the car, follow our professional guide to get rid of them permanently.
The dust will always return but regular dusting and cleaning cars keep your car dust-free. You will also breathe better and feel some sense of pride when people enter your car.
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Bernard is the lead driver and force behind his Big Dog Garage Race Team. He is the General Manager and Chief Mechanic of Jay Leno’s Garage. Bernard and his crew of seven are responsible for all repairs, restoration and fabrication of Jay’s incredible automobile and motorcycle collection.
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