This time we have a couple tips about cleaning interiors and joining us is Cliff Dewey, owner of Cliff Dewey Auto Detail in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Cliff, welcome to Goss’ Garage.

CLIFF DEWEY, OWNER, CLIFF DEWEY AUTO DETAIL:  Thank you Pat.

GOSS:  All right, cleaning the interior of the car, where do we start?

DEWEY:  Pretty simple Pat, you just want to start out with a good vacuum.  One trick is: when most people are vacuuming they just vacuum the surface.  Well all your seats have perforated lines and you just want to get into all the nooks and crannies as you’re vacuuming, a good little detail brush helps to loosen up the dirt and some of the grains that are imbedded in the fabric in the car.

GOSS:  Kind of just scoot it toward the vacuum?

DEWEY:  Absolutely, you want to move it back and forth and just brush it up.

GOSS:  What about if you have compressed air?

DEWEY:  If you have an air compressor that’s a wonderful thing, you just put your blow tip on the end of it, and the same thing, turn your vacuum on and then use the air as you’re vacuuming and that will loosen up everything.

GOSS:  And blow it right toward the vacuum again?

DEWEY:  Absolutely, it’s going to tend to go other places too but it’s going to get that ground-in dirt that’s down in the nooks and crannies that doesn’t want to come out with a normal vacuuming.

GOSS:  That would work on all sorts of areas not just the seats - right?

DEWEY:  Absolutely, around the shifter, the console, underneath the seats, between the seats, all the hard to reach areas. Absolutely, absolutely.

GOSS:  Suppose you have cloth upholstery and you want to protect it, what do you do there?

DEWEY:  Just get yourself a good fabric protector that you can pick up at any of the major stores.

GOSS:  Okay, not everyone has cloth interior, what about leather?

DEWEY:  Leather can pretty much be approached in the same manner.  You want to vacuum it but you want to be careful with the vacuum, you don’t want to scratch or damage the leather, you want to be a little more gentle, more careful, but the same routine.  You can take a toothbrush and get in the nooks and crannies use the vacuum, hold it and brush and vacuum at the same time.

GOSS:  Leather cleaner, good idea?

DEWEY:  Absolutely.

GOSS:  All right, and what about leather conditioner?

DEWEY:  Always a leather product, you want to use conditioner after you do the cleaner.  It’s a two step process, clean the leather, condition the leather.

GOSS:  And finally we get lots of people that use protectants inside the car, good or bad?

DEWEY:  It’s personal preference Pat. In your interior dressing it will produce a little bit of a glare - off the dashboard when you’re driving when the sun hits it, and it does collect a lot of dust.

GOSS:  So it could be a danger?

DEWEY:  Absolutely.

GOSS:  Okay Cliff, thank you so much.

DEWEY:  You’re welcome, Pat. 


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