Review & How-to: Wolfgang Carpet and Upholstery Restorer - NEW FORMULA!

[Mike Phillips]

Review & How-to: Wolfgang Carpet and Upholstery Restorer - NEW FORMULA!




Most people know my passion is for polishing and perfecting paint. Guilty as charged.

I make an analogy about interior detailing to compare and contrast the interest level in paint polishing to interior detailing that goes like this, if you've ever been to ANY of my classes you have heard this analogy...


When most of us go to car shows, being that we're detailers or detailing minded, (you're reading this on a car detailing discussion forum), I think it's fair to say that when we look at cars on display our reasoning goes like this,

"Wow! What a cool car with a great looking finish"

Or

Wow! What a cool car... it's too bad the paint is all hacked-up and swirled-out"


The point being, it's the condition of the paint that either makes the car look over the top or makes the car a good candidate for a proper polishing. The BIG PICTURE being is that as car guys and as detailers, when we look at cars it's the paint that makes or breaks our opinion of the car and it is the one thing, or at least the primary thing we all look at when looking at cars on display.


Can I get witness?


What I never see when I go to car shows is someone that walks over to a cool looking car, opens the door, lifts up the floor mat and then says,

Wow!

Hey Jim, the carpet in your car looks absolutely amazing!!!!!



That just doesn't happen and the reason why is because carpet doesn't get any of us excited. We don't get excited to LOOK at it and we certainly don't get excited about the though of CLEANING it. You can't say that about car paint. I know I get excited about taking a diamond in the rough and turning it into a glistening gemstone and many of you do also.


Okay... the above all said... we can't escape the fact that the carpet and upholstery, things like cloth seats, cloth door panels need to be cleaned once in a while to not only keep them clean (remove germs etc), but to preserve the appearance value of your car, either for your own enjoyment or for resale or trade-in.


So bite the bullet and pencil in a time and date to clean the carpet and upholstery in your car and before that date, order some of the below to at least make the job easy and your efforts effective.


Extractors
A quick note about extractors. If you have a hot water extractor you can still use this product as your cleaner and then only use water to extract the dirt and cleaner out of the material instead of putting a cleaner or APC into the clean water tank of your extractor. The problem with putting a cleaner inside the clean water tank of an extractor is that you're NEVER really rinsing the carpet, cloth or upholstery clean as you're always injecting the cleaner back into the surface with each wet pass you make. In my 3-day classes I teach using water only in the clean water tank and use a dedicated carpet and upholstery cleaner to loose dirt before extracting.



How to clean carpet and upholstery by hand

Here's the good news.... anyone with a hand can clean carpet and upholstery. Yes it's a very basic process but sometimes keeping a process simple is a good way to go.



If you look around the right hand side of this trunk carpet out of a 2007 SL 550 AMG you an see some brown colored stains. These were throughout the carpet just not as concentrated as you see in the corner of the mat. Point being, the carpet is dirty.





Step 1: Vacuum loose dirt off and out of the carpet or upholstery first


Step 2: Spray Wolfgang Carpet & Upholstery Restorer of the surface to be cleaned using a sweeping motions
The goals is to lightly wet the surface not drench the area with liquid.





Note the sticker? This is the new formula. Works better, smells better, safe on most fabrics.





Step 3: Spray the area with the Wolfgang Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner
For light dirt, simply mist a little spray over the surface. For heavy dirt and stains, apply a wet application.





Step 4: QUICKLY start to scrub and agitate the surface with a medium bristle brush
The reason the word QUICKLY is in capital letters is because I'm trying to focus your attention on the word. This new formula is designed to create lather when agitated so it floats on top of the surface instead of seeping into the material. Lather is like foam, that is it's a liquid with LOTS of tiny bubbles embodied into it. For light cleaning you can scrub with a towel. For heavier soil build-up then scrub with a brush. SONAX recently introduced the perfect carpet and upholstery scrubbing brush. This is a solid investment for our tool arsenal.




Scrub in two directions for uniform application of the cleaners into the material.









Step 5: Remove the cleaning solution and all the dirt and scum you loosenedI
n the pictures below I'm using a basic, blue all purpose microfiber towel. The idea is to get the liquid and the dirt you embodied into the liquid into your microfiber towel. You can rub and even blot if the surface is really wet. The big picture however is to remove all the liquid and get the fibers as dry as possible. If you have some old cotton, terrycloth towels, then I suggest using these as cotton does a better job of aBsorbing. Cotton both absorbs and adsorbs but microfiber fibers are better at aDsorbing and when trying to remove liquid from one type of fiber into another type of fiber, a fiber or in other words a cotton towel that absorbs tends to work better and faster than microfiber that adsorbs.






For clarification...

aBsorb = To wick into
aDsorb = To wick onto



Step 6: Allow the final moisture to air dry before re-installing into the car

To speed up the process, place a fan or an air movers next to the carpet to speed up evaporation. If working inside of a car then place an air mover inside the car, roll a couple of windows down a few inches and then close the doors. This will create an air current inside the car t fully dry any carpet, cloth or upholstery.





That's really all there is to it...

Anyone can clean carpet, cloth and upholstery by hand. All you need is a little time and a little elbow grease.





Review

What can I say, cleaning carpets, cloth seats and other cloth upholstery isn't sexy and it's not a lot of fun. You probably won't ever have someone lift up a floor mat in your car and say,

Wow! Your carpet looks amazing!!!!

But you know you need to do it so might as well dive in head first and get it over with and since we all know that,

If a job is worth doing it's worthing doing right the first time


Then get this product and make the job easier and faster.



As for the new formula?

First - It has a fresh citrus scent. That's better than a house evacuating industrial odor like most carpet and upholstery cleaners.

Second - It chemically neutralizes foul odors instead of masking them with the fresh citrus scent. (Most carpet and upholstery cleaners don't offer this feature)

Third - When you agitate the cleaner it creates a rich lather that stays on the top of the surface instead of penetrating deeper into the material. This is a key feature as you don't want a lot of liquid INSIDE the material you want it mostly on the top of the material when working by hand. This is also why you start by misting the product on and then quickly agitating with a brush so as to create lather not let the product seep into the material.

Fourth - This new and improved formula offers more powerful cleaning agents. Another reason to start out using a light spray and only adding more product if needed.

Fifth and last - This is an eco-friendly product that is biodegradable so it's safe for the environment as well as safe for you.

On Autogeek.com

Wolfgang Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner

Wolfgang Carpet & Upholstery Restorer - 128 ounce (1 gallon)

SONAX Textile and Leather Brush

[Mike Phillips]

***Bump***


Here's the new formula Wolfgang Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner

[choijw2]

Great review mike.

Just ran out of carpet cleaners, This must be the sign

[Eric@CherryOnTop]

I get excited when I look at carpet.......














Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Mike Phillips]

Great review mike.

Thank you sir.

Just ran out of carpet cleaners, This must be the sign

I find in life, everything happens for a reason and timing is everything even though at the time it may not appear to make sense or fit into your idea of how things should be.

[motion732]

How does this compare to a product like Folex?

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Beautiful review, documentation, and pictures Mike.

True, clean carpets don't really do much at a car show where you mostly see the paint but it does complete the package deal.

Thanks for taking the time to put it all together and share.

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Can this be used in conjunction with a steamer?

[Mike Phillips]

How does this compare to a product like Folex?

I've never used Folex so I couldn't compare the two products.

Can this be used in conjunction with a steamer?

Yes.

Just to note -

Steam Machines are primarily for TOPICAL cleaning and disinfecting.

Hot water extractors, (or even cold water extractors), are for deep cleaning or sub-surface cleaning.


You can use this cleaner with both types of machines.