How to Restore Your Car’s Interior

1. How to Restore Your Car’s Interior

2. Introduction Cars, like any machine, can wear out over time. Usually, we often see the engine and transmission break down first when it comes to old vehicles. However, even the interior can give up especially when you’re not maintaining it. Some of the symptoms of a beaten car interior include torn leather, moldy dashboard, smelly interior, and brittle seats. There can be so many more problems, and you might encounter these if you’re not careful. While restoration of car interiors are standard work for repair shops, it’s better that you know how to restore car interior yourself!

3. Things To Keep In Mind Tips and Tricks Before hitting on the steps on how to restore your interior, it’s good to have a grasp first on the fundamentals of restoration. Here are a few tips that you should keep in mind: Never Restore Without Cleaning Cleaning is always the most important chore to do when it comes to the interior. Sure, you might get excited over new fabrics, but clean the surfaces first. An untidy car will be damaged even more if you try to restore it as it is.

4. The Fabrics and Colors Make a Difference Whether you’re replacing plastic, vinyl, or leather, the important part is to get the color and material right. Your car comes with primary and secondary layers of color and material. Thus, follow these to avoid making your interior look tacky and nonmatching.

5. Use Cheap Items to Make the Interior Look Expensive Our last tip is probably the most important. Since the idea here is to save money, this is how you should approach the problem. Invest in cheap items below $20 that will make a huge difference. That can be adhesives, colorants, glues, and liners. We’ll discuss it more below. The idea here is that these are little hacks that solve most of your car’s problems. Using a sleek suede fabric to cover up a cracked dash is a good example of this.

6. Tools You Will Need A car’s interior requires a lot of items. However, the good news here is that these are cheap and readily available at your local warehouse store. • Rags • Face mask • Best car vacuum cleaner • Wrenches (optional) • Bristle brush (ideally you want this to be nylon) • Cutting tools such as box cutters and scissors (optional)

7. Materials You Will Need • Upholstery cleaning agent (Car shampoo and soap would do) • Plastic, vinyl, and leather colorant • Vinyl, leather, and plastic preparation spray • Plastic and vinyl clear coat • Plastic adhesion promoter • Fabrics

8. Step 1 : Plan The Pimping All The Way Now, before you just start pimping your car interior, you need to plan the whole process step by step. Determine first which things you want to change or decorate. Observe and estimate if you have enough space on your car to fit all the “aesthetic” things in your vehicle. You wouldn’t want to waste that adorable pair of speakers or those cool dashboard decals just because you miscalculated the space in your car. Moreover, this can also help you keep track of your progress and not get sidetrack when you start.

9. Step 2: Again, give your car some good cleaning first Whether or not you decide to clean up your car from the inside to the outside or vice versa, what’s important is not skipping this step. Pimping up your car interior without cleaning it first is just like dressing up nice without taking a bath first. You can start by either cleaning your car upholstery or replacing them altogether with a new one. Upholstery cleaning agents, powerful car vacuum or upholstery cleaner and the like are highly encouraged when accomplishing this task.

10. Step 3: Clean the carpets The carpets are also an important part of pimping up and restoring your car interior. A clean upholstery won’t look as clean if the carpets seem to be a little dirty. If you can’t restore your carpet’s appearance with just a brush and a cleaner, then you might as well replace it with a new one. Ideally, you can replace it with something that also matches your car upholstery. But then again, this is optional. Make sure to shake off first the carpet (even if it’s a new one) to remove dust or any fabric bits.

11. Step 4: Start “pimping” up the interior Now, here comes the fun part. You can start by adding whatever decals you want to add to the car ceiling or the car door interiors. However, be careful not to add too many decals. Lastly, would be the stick shift and the stirring wheel. You can choose to add decals on them or add a cover or grip to them. Aside from being aesthetically pleasing, adding a cover on your steering wheel also helps improve the grip for added comfort while driving.

12. Conclusion Car interior restoration doesn’t have to be complicated. If you’re aiming for a well-rounded, simple, and clean interior, then you won’t need to shed extra money. You can achieve all of these principles through effort, research, and a good set of tools. Hence, just don’t forget to get the necessary tools and materials when restoring your car. If you found this article helpful, feel free to share this with your fellow car owners! Good luck and remember, a loved car means a long-lasting car!