Purpose: To keep the interior looking, feeling, and even smelling enw for many years

Pro: Well, your interior will look better than you thought it could
Con: Nothing serious, again, silicon products shoudlbe avoided

Frequency: To broad, covered in procedure

Products Needed:
1-Bottle of Griots Garage Interior Cleaner (griotsgarage.com)
5-cotton towels
1-leather scrub brush (properautocare.com)
1-bottle of Rubber/Vinyl Protectant
1-vacuum

Procedure: Theres nothing like a freshly detailed interior. It goes beyond being just clean. If you keep up with somesimple maintenance inside your car, you will be suprised how great it will look and smell years down the road.

Vacuum: Vacuum all the surfaces thuroughly (sp?). Use a soft brush attachment for the headliner and dash. Carefull not to scratch and shiny wood trim (not a worry in the Z). Use crevice tool for seat crease and in all the crevices. Vacuum the interior every week. This is the best thing you can do.

Clean/Shampoo: Sometiimes, surfaces may need to be cleaned beond just simle vacuuming. I HIGHLY recomend Griots Garage Interior Cleaner, it does everything and does it pretty damn well. Just spray this onto the surface to be cleaned, then wipe of with a damp towel, then dry. That simlple. Armrests and seats do tend to acumulate more dirt, and then a simple scrubbing with the leather brush and interior cleaner will do. This brush is great for hard to get out stains. This should be done about 3 times a year.

Carpets also need to shampooed from time to time. If you are lazy, throw your mats into the washing machine (though the trumk mat probably wont fit). This cleans them VERY well and you dont have to work at all. The only downside is that over time the corners of the mats might start to fold up. Thats why you try to keep shampooing to a minimal...to prevent carpet wear.
For hand shampooing, spray the Interior Cleaner onto the carpet, lightly scrub, then rise with a towel damp with WARM water. The use of warm water is to make sure all of the surfactants are rinsed out of the fibers...if left, the carpet will be a little stick after drying, and get dirty again quickly. Finaly, dry with a clean towel. Stuborn stains may require the use of a stain remover. These can be found at just about any detailing store. This goes for the carbon leather seats as well. Shampoo the seats/carpets only when nescesary.

Leather: The leather in your Z, along with 95% of auto leather produced today is clear-coated. Meaning its sprayed with a thin, beathable coating of vinyl. So, leather should be treated like vinyl. Just use your Griots Interior Cleaner, to wipe down the seats, and again scrub if nesecary. (You should clean the seats more often than the rest of the car because they get quite a bit of salt and dirt on them...if left there, the friction from your *** and back will abrade away at the finish of the leather. This will lead to that shiny leather look.)

Protecting: You should use a water based, silicon free protectant to dress up the plastic, leather and vinyl surfaces in your car. Some of my favorites include 303 Aerospace Portectant, Black Magic DASH protectant, an Vinylex (the shiny-est of the bunch). Just spray onto a cloth and wipe down just about all of the surfaces (excluding of course the metail trim, clear plastic, carpets ect)in your Z INCLUDING the leather. Again, no special leather conditioners are neaded, just a quality vinyl and rubber protectant. In fact, using an oily leather protecatnt isn't good for the vinyl clear coat. You can purchase a carpet protectant if you want, to prevent them from being stained again easily. 303 makes a good one, but it does smell bad for like a day.

Windows: Don't use an amonia based cleaner (Windex). These aren't good for the vinyl and leather in your car. Instead use special car glass cleaners which are made from alcohol and such. Theese can be found at properautocare.com amung other detailing stores.

 

As always, thanks for the great info!
I've been using 303 for a while and really like it. Never thought of using it on the leather!

 

Don't worry VQ, the world isnt going to end.

 

Edit, under shampooing, i mean that procedure is aplicable to the carbon cloth seats not the carbon leather. Sory.

 

Now that these detailings are getting quite extensive, I am creating my own word document with all the chapters for future reference -- thanks!!!

 

how do u clean the arm rest and interior door areas that are made of that special plastic/vinyl .. it seems hard to get them clean

 

Do you have any comments on that 3M scotch guard stuff ( the kind you buy in a can at K-Mart) for preventing stains on the cloth seats...?

Thanks!

Ethan

 

Well, if its fairly clean, just a damp towel will do. If they need cleaning, then the Griots Garage Cleaner will work fine. Then dress/protect them with 303 (my fav). BTW, you should re-apply the vinyl/rubber protectant avery month or so.