Tested: Best Car Carpet Cleaners for 2022
Why is it so hard to clean car carpets?
Carpets in your vehicle are designed to handle much more abuse than your everyday house carpet. The fibers are tougher and much denser to cope with endless pairs of dirty shoes. This makes them hang onto dirt, dust, and other crud with annoying tenacity. Any time you have to clean your vehicle’s carpet, be prepared to put in some work.
How often should I clean my car’s carpet?
We recommend vacuuming twice a month or so, depending on how often you use your car. When it comes to cleaning with a chemical, do a good deep clean every spring, and then spot clean whenever you have a stain pop up.
What do auto detailers use to clean car carpets?
Auto detailers usually have professional steam cleaners and hot water extractors. The typical vehicle owner doesn’t need to own one of these big, expensive machines—that’s why they make sprays like this. Cheap and convenient!
Should you vacuum before using carpet cleaner?
Yes! This is very important. Vacuum up as many chunks as you can with a shop vac or a handheld car vacuum—here are some of our recommendations—before hitting with the spray. You don’t want to be rubbing any chunks of yuck deeper into your carpet as you scrub, so get as much out as you can beforehand.
Why Trust Us?
Car and Driver and its sibling publications at Hearst Autos combine the forces, talent, and knowledge of three of the largest, most influential automotive publications in the world. With these incredible tools at our disposal, we don’t have to worry about gaming search engines to get traffic or promoting lousy products just to make a sale. Rather, we’re concerned with our legacy, our reputation, and most of all the trust that you, our readers, have in Autoweek, Car and Driver, and Road & Track. We know you rely on us to give it to you straight, and we promise to deliver the truth, every time.
To mirror our values, this test was conducted in an environment that provided equal testing procedures for each product: the Car and Driver garage. We tested each cleaner on both mud and wine stains, and measured how well each stain was cleaned. We documented this, along with sprayer ergonomics, drying time, smell, and anything else we thought was worth noting. Upon tallying up our findings, we agreed that our test was fair, legitimate, and provided the best information for us to recommend our picks to you, the reader. In the end, that’s what matters most.
Read more about our product testing and evaluation process here.
