With just about anything in your car, the wear and tear will start to show overtime and use.
In this example, we’re going to clean a heavily used interior that hasn’t been cleaned in years.
The armrest is a high traffic area. Both the passenger and driver side with routinely use this area to rest their arm while driving.
Some people would think this armrest is actually damaged and the material is peeling off. This would be false.
This is the sweat, oil, grease, and dirt that’s transferred from your clothes, skin, or other material like fast food bags onto the leather material.
Fortunately this is a rather simple cleaning you can do within a few minutes. With just a few tools and products around your home or if you’re willing to drive down to your local auto parts store, you can get it done.
We’ll go over three variations of cleaning that’ll give you the same results:
How long should it take to clean the armrest?
In total, this should take you less than 90 seconds to complete. The difficult level to this is easy. But if you’re brand new to cleaning a car interior, it can take a bit longer.
Also keep in mind the condition of your armrest. If it’s tearing or ripping, you’ll have to be a lot more careful on how you clean it.
Tools and Products You Need
As we’ve shared the dozens and dozens of tools and products we carry in our arsenal, we’re going to keep things really simple:
- Microfiber towels (you can buy a pack for $10 at your local auto parts store)
- Toothbrush (that you no longer use)
- All purpose cleaner (we recommend Super Clean which can be bought locally)
If you want, buying a bigger upholstery brush rather than using your toothbrush will help but not mandatory.
Since there’s so many affordable cleaners at your local auto parts store, I won’t mention anything about making any homemade cleaners (also because I’ve never done any of that myself).
Don’t worry, your car is not going to smell like chemicals.
Now that we have the tools and products, let’s get started with the cleaning methods. These are in no particular order.
See which one suits you best and get to work 🙂
Method #1: Spray Into The Brush and Agitate Armrest
This is probably going to be the most effective method of the three. This what I recommend and what we use with customer cars.
In this method, we’re going to spray the cleaner into our brush and then agitate the armrest.
Why spray the brush instead of just spraying the armrest?
You want to minimize the amount of runoff on the surface material. You can cause streaks from the cleaner on the material. If this happens, lightly tap the cleaner to absorb some of the cleaner (or wipe it down altogether).
Usually it’s really easy to remove, but it’s just better not to chance it since you can very easily just avoid that problem altogether.
This is especially true if you’re working outside in the heat or if the interior is already hot.
The hotter it is, the faster the product is going to dry on the surface. If there’s runoff, the streaks will form faster.
Step 1: Spray a small amount of cleaner onto the brush. It doesn’t need to foam up or anything. 2 or 3 pulls will be enough.
Step 2: Agitate the armrest in circular motions. Use light to moderate down pressure. You don’t need to press down on the brush as hard as you can. That’s going to be overkill.
Step 3: Once you think you’ve agitated enough and it looks better, take your microfiber towel and wipe the cleaner off. You should see the dirt on the towel now (assuming it’s that dirty).
That’s the basic cleaning method. Not too difficult right? We like to keep cleaning interiors that way.
Don’t try to clean the entire armrest at once. Break it down into two or three sections. That way you’re not rushing to do the entire area. You can clean it in smaller sections and take your time to do it right.
You don’t have to get it perfect on the first try.
Once you wipe it down with your towel, you’re going to inspect your work.
Are you happy with it? Great! Keep it moving on.
If you’re not happy with it, or think you can get better results, then repeat the entire process again until content with the results.
Method #2: Spray Into The Towel and Agitate Armrest
If you don’t have any brushes on hand, this can work in your favor. Instead of agitating with a brush, we’re simply going to agitate with the towel.
This can take more time as you’ll do multiple passes on the same areas to get the same quality results as if you were using the brush.
You can still get great results, it’ll just take a little bit longer.
Step 1: Spray your cleaner into a small section of the towel.
Step 2: Put your fingers behind the towels of where you sprayed the cleaner and agitate the armrest.
Step 3: With the same towel but on the clean side (or grab another if you have it on hand), wipe the cleaner down and inspect your results.
Here’s how it all looks:
For good measure, I would recommend you repeat the process again to ensure you’ve removed as much as you could.
Don’t press down so hard on the towel that you start to peel off that material from the armrest. You’ll use light to moderate down pressure.
Method #3: Spray Armrest and Agitate with Brush
This is just the same as the first method except we’re going to spray the actual armrest and agitate with our brush (or towel).
Make sure you have the bottle on the “mist” setting. Do not have it on the stream as that can definitely cause immediate stains or streaks on the material.
You just want to spray two or three trigger pulls for the cleaner to sit on the material. You do not want to see a bunch of runoff in all directions.
To make things even simpler, you can spray a little bit on the armrest and spray a little bit on the brush itself.
Step 1: Spray a small amount of cleaner onto the brush and lightly mist the armrest. If there’s runoff, quickly smear it around with the brush or lightly tap it with the towel to absorb some of the cleaner.
Step 2: Agitate the armrest in circular motions. Use light to moderate down pressure. You don’t need to press down on the brush as hard as you can.
Step 3: Once you think you’ve agitated enough and it looks better, take your microfiber towel and wipe the cleaner off. You should see the dirt on the towel now (assuming it’s that dirty).
Repeat The Process On Plastic Material
Congratulations! You have a much cleaner armrest now 🙂
If you’d like to continue on this interior car cleaning journey, then you can use the same method you used to clean your armrest on the door panels, dashboard, and even leather.
As long as it’s plastic or leather, you can do any of the three methods above.
Cleaning and detailing your car can be very therapeutic, relaxing, and rewarding. So give it a go when you have an hour or so to spare!