Top 10 Interior Detailing Mistakes Beginners Make (and How to Avoid Them)
The Auto Detailing Podcast
Top 10 Interior Detailing Mistakes Beginners Make (and How to Avoid Them)
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Term
piano black plastics
Piano black plastics are shiny black surfaces found inside cars that look like a grand piano finish. They look nice but can get scratched easily and show fingerprints.
Car
King Ranch
The King Ranch is a special version of the Ford F-150 truck that has a fancy interior with nice leather and other upscale features. It's designed for people who want a comfortable and stylish truck.
Part
shifter boot
The shifter boot is the cover around the gear stick in your car. It keeps dirt out and makes the inside look nicer.
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Today we're going to be talking about the top 10 mistakes that people make,
beginners, pros, whatever, when it comes to interior detailing.
And then once you know what the mistakes are, you know how to avoid them.
But interiors can be a very, very tricky part of the car.
And in fact, even when it's clean, a customer can get in
and it still kind of feels dirty and also the opposite is true.
Sometimes you don't really do much on an interior
and you could do a couple of quick hacks
and the customer feels like you detailed the whole thing.
So I'm going to go through some of these tips
and these really aren't like surface level tips.
These are lessons that I've actually learned from doing it wrong
and doing it wrong very good.
So if you're not good at interiors or you're worried about making mistakes,
don't worry. I was right there with you and I can only, you know,
I only compiled this list because of these are the mistakes
that I've made over the years.
So the first one really is cleaning without doing an overview
of like what the different materials are in the car
and then what materials you're actually dealing with.
From piano black plastics to coated or non-coated leather,
if you're doing something like a King Ranch truck,
are you dealing with cloth seats?
Are you doing with fabric seats?
Are you dealing with low pile carpet on something like a Kia or a Hyundai?
Are you dealing with a high pile carpet, something on like a Rolls Royce?
There's so many different surfaces in a car
and just like you would with the exterior of a car,
kind of creating a game plan and doing an overview of like,
okay, there's leather on the dash.
It's not all plastic or there's a lot of piano black.
Man, I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally messed up
piano black because I just went too aggressive
and I was moving from one surface to another, right?
And then you end up scratching the black surface
and then you got to polish it out or just create a nightmare, right?
So I always told myself too, if I'm not sure, do a test area first.
That's what we do on the exterior of the car, right?
And so that's one lesson that I had to teach myself is like,
hey, the same rules apply that you use on the outside of the car for the inside.
You're just dealing with a lot more or a lot different surfaces,
a lot more different surfaces than you might be dealing with on the outside.
But just like on the outside, if you're not sure how a chemical is going to react,
you may try it in a small inconspicuous area first.
And so the same is true.
You know, if you don't know what the surface is,
if you're not sure if it's coated or uncoated,
definitely try a small inconspicuous area first.
But this is definitely something, oh gosh, I've had so many,
it almost pains me to talk about.
I've had so many mistakes that I've made on interiors.
Even simple stuff like, and we'll get into it later,
but using an APC on everything, right?
Carpets just, oh, it's an all-purpose cleaner.
It can clean every purpose, right?
And there's really some bad things that can happen if you do that.
And that was, you know, all my years of experience dealing with interiors
is really went into consideration when I was developing the complete cabin cleaner
to work on a bunch of different surfaces.
So the next mistake that a lot of people make,
and I have one particular detail that stands out to me that I made this mistake,
is overwetting the fabrics and the seats,
especially if you live in an area that, you know, you have weather,
so it's colder and you're doing interiors through the winter.
I've even seen people use heaters and sidecars,
which is a great idea if you are living in that kind of environment.
Obviously, be careful that can create its own host of different issues.
But sometimes we think over-saturating, more cleaner, more water is better.
But the problem is that it can lead to wicking.
It can lead to mildew, which is exactly what happened to me.
I was doing this minivan. It was completely thrashed.
I was just going to town with my extractor,
and I think actually at the time my extractor was starting to break.
But this particular detail that I did was actually what got me away from using
my extractor as much and kind of going into more steam,
because I just put down way too much water,
and then it was, even though I'm in Southern California,
it was in the wintertime.
And so the cars didn't have enough time to air out,
and it led to mildew and stink in the car.
Sometimes also some, I call them like ghost stains,
stains can actually reappear after they dry, which is really difficult.
So contrary to some of these videos that we see online,
you really aren't pressure washing the inside of the car.
So sometimes less is actually more,
especially on some of these really difficult interior cloth seats.
That we've been seeing for the past decade in cars,
they're really tricky to clean and oversaturating them,
can actually lead to more of these ghost stains.
And so you have to be really tricky.
So similar to the outside of the car too,
where you would work in stages,
you don't polish before you clay,
if there's heavy contamination,
you kind of work in, you wouldn't polish before you wash the car on the outside.
That'd be weird, right?
And so again, same rules apply for the interior.
You need to work in levels and stages.
And so that is one thing that was really hard for me to learn,
especially when early on in my detailing career,
when I was dealing with nastier cars,
you kind of, the nastier the car,
the more aggressive you want to go in on it.
And that's where that more water, more liquid,
and we think that it's going to be cleaner,
but that's actually wrong.
And sometimes you can get not away with,
but you actually get a better result with less.
So work on chemical action and agitation, not flooding.
So what that means is,
just like we pre-soak on the outside of the car,
pre-soaking on the inside of the car
could save you a ton of time as well.
Use that same pump sprayer,
use the complete cabin cleaner,
pre-soak the carpets or the seats
with a little bit of liquid,
maybe agitate a little bit with the scrub buddy pad,
even just a microfiber towel.
Some people for seats will even put an old clean,
but old microfiber cutting pad on a DA
and do the seats like that,
those seats that are kind of like in the cheaper cars,
I would call it,
where the fabric just honestly sucks to clean.
But pre-soaking is really, really good to do on interiors,
especially on nasty interiors, and less is more.
So, and kind of in that same vein of working in stages and levels,
sometimes, how I like to think of interiors in stages
is sometimes I will do kind of my dry phase first,
or kind of my first initial vacuum and go over,
I'll kind of try to sweep things out,
use my little detail brushes, keep everything dry,
maybe this is where you blow out the cracks and crevices,
you're doing your initial vacuum, one is kind of a tangent squirrel right here,
one thing that I used to think,
and then when I changed my kind of mindset on it,
it was much better and actually just saved myself a lot of frustration,
is I used to think that you only can vacuum the car one time.
But what I realized is actually,
if you vacuum the car two or three times,
you're actually going to get a way better result.
And so, my first initial phase of cleaning an interior,
again, if we're talking about, you know,
we're talking about not a weekly maintenance detail,
we're talking about kind of a deeper detail here.
And so, my first phase is this kind of like getting out all the trash,
doing the initial vacuum,
blowing out all the cracks and crevices,
blowing out underneath the seats, brushing some of the seams,
kind of just a bulk vacuum, I guess.
And then, I can go back and start introducing some,
you know, chemicals, some water, some wetness,
because sometimes those stains will reimagine themselves.
And so, having it too wet in there too can mess things up
and then you can create mud on the inside.
It could just be a mess.
So, starting with a dry phase,
kind of getting the big bulky chunks and trash out,
is great before you go in with any like cleaning products.
So, I definitely recommend that.
As I mentioned earlier, number four,
using an APC on everything.
So, APCs are very powerful,
but honestly, often they're just too harsh
if they're not diluted down correctly.
And again, I had the mindset that stronger is better, right?
We want to get in there and do it.
But APCs can dry out leather.
They could definitely dry out plastics and moldings.
They can leave a residue.
They can actually stain carpet and make tan carpet yellow.
I've actually had that happen to me a few times,
which is not ideal when you're trying to clean something.
I guess, yeah, it would be better,
but sometimes on tan carpets,
I would, the APCs I'd be using would discolor them.
They would clean them, but then they would discolor them.
So, I try to only use APCs, you know,
on really tough, textured, or non-sensitive areas.
So, think like brake pedal, kick panels, stuff like that.
But honestly, I really try to,
and I used to be a big, big user of APCs on interiors.
And in developing the complete cabin cleaner,
I really tried to develop a cleaner that,
because the complete cabin cleaner is pH neutral.
So, it's not going to dry out any of those interior plastics.
And I really, really focused on that.
I needed something that was aggressive
and can clean a really dirty carpet or seat,
but then can be diluted down, shoot even down to like 20 to 1,
as more of a maintenance product.
And so, that's exactly what the complete cabin cleaner is.
And it's super, you know,
it's not aggressive when it doesn't need to be, right?
But it can be aggressive when it is.
So, definitely, if you're using APCs on interiors,
I would definitely highly, highly recommend
trying to get away from that.
And using something like the complete cabin cleaner
will really help you with that.
So, number five is not sitting where your customer sits
and how they will sit in the car.
So, in not doing this,
sometimes you really skip some of the high-touch areas,
weirdly enough.
Something like the mirror in the divisor,
sometimes a rear-view mirror,
sometimes just a headliner right where they go
to grab divisor, gets dirty.
And so, there's all these little missed touch points.
Sometimes like the blinker, that's not as common to miss that,
but sometimes the seat belts sometimes get missed.
The door handle part where you go to open the door sometimes.
Sometimes the front part of the seat where someone may have,
like, you know, extra oil on their body or sunscreen
or something like that.
And you can't really necessarily see it
unless you start looking for it.
But what I like to do is I like to sit
how my customer is going to sit in the car
and then look around, right?
So, I'll sit in the driver's seat.
I'll even close the door
and I'll just start moving stuff around, right?
Maybe the shifter boot is another one.
You are obviously detailing the car when it's in park,
but when they go to shift it into drive,
if right in that shifter boot it's full of crumbs
because you didn't turn the car on and put it into drive,
to see that, that's a big, big missed area.
And that could really, that seems like a detailed point.
And if you miss that, it can really change the conception
of if you actually clean the car, right?
So, again, you can, the carpets could look spotless.
The seat could look spotless.
Everything could be dialed in.
The windows could be cleaned on the inside,
but then they go to start their car
and put it into drive and there's crumbs in the shifter boot.
That's pretty bad, right?
So, and again, I'll sit in the passenger seat
and do the same thing, open the glove box,
open up the center console, flip down the visor.
And I go around the whole entire car and do that.
Even in a midi-vam, I'll sit in the third row
because sometimes you miss the cup holder in the third row
or you just miss what you can't see from certain angles, right?
And so, that's definitely one thing I would do, too,
to help, to help not miss those kind of key areas
that people see when they're actually in the car.
So, number six, overdressing interiors.
Shine is not clean.
Shiny is not clean, right?
And really, I think we're past the point of this,
but most people don't like shiny dashboards.
They attract dust, they glare in the sunlight,
so it's actually dangerous.
And shiny interiors are just something
that used car dealerships do or car dealerships
do to make the car seem cleaner,
but people actually hate that,
especially as you start to touch those areas
like the door panels that are shiny
and the shine starts to wear off,
then you have a splotchy interior.
So, I think shiny interiors are a thing of the past
and I think matte interiors feel new.
I will say if you do something, add a little bit of shine,
or not even shine, but kind of restore some of the plastics inside,
sometimes as cars age, they just don't look as fresh.
And so, sometimes what I'll do is I'll use all dressed up
to give a natural kind of OEM matte finish,
but it gives it an OEM matte finish
by adding some all dressed up
because the panels are actually dried out
or sun damaged or something like that.
So, but high shine is definitely not where it's at
when it comes to interiors,
and my customers hate it, absolutely hate it.
It actually devalues the detail.
They think it's actually cheaper
the higher the shine you have.
All right, number seven, neglecting the vents in the HVAC.
So, these vents get dust trapped in there,
but also mildew and odors.
And sometimes when I started using steam over the extractor,
I would do hit the vents with a little bit of steam
and you see people pumping steam through the vents
because it's cool as it exits all the other vents.
But the risk in doing that, again,
if you're living in an environment that it's really cold,
is that you can actually get residue, moisture in there,
and it can actually smell like mildew and odor.
So, again, even if everything looks clean,
if the customer starts out the car
and there's a musty smell,
it kind of ruins the whole entire detail, right?
So, if you're going to do that with the steam around the vents,
make sure you kind of follow up with some compressed air
or maybe even a little vacuum
and really try to get in some sort of blower on low.
And try to neutralize any buildup
that may have gotten in there.
But those videos look really cool
when you're pumping the steam through all the HVAC vents
and it's coming out other vents and you're blowing it in.
The passenger side is coming out the driver side.
It looks really cool, but you definitely don't want to overdo it.
When it comes to number eight, just don't use cheap stuff, right?
So, I've tried to use cheaper towels.
I've tried to use cheaper brushes.
I've tried to use, like I said, an all-purpose cleaner for everything.
And so, just don't...
It's not a place that you want to cheap out.
There's too many sensitive materials in cars and newer cars.
They seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper materials.
So, definitely using good quality microfiber towels
and good quality brushes and everything like that
can really, really help save the detail.
All right, number nine is a big one.
And that's when it comes to odor removal.
I don't care what other thing is out there
if it's a little air freshener that you stick underneath the seat,
something that you... a machine that you let run.
Ozone is really the best, most effective way to neutralize
and completely eliminate an odor from a car.
But a lot of times when doing this, people forget
that you need to neutralize the source.
So, if someone...
An Uber driver calls you and someone barfed in their car,
just sticking an ozone machine in there will help,
but the smell will come back because the barf is still there
or the residue of the barf is still there.
Same if there's like a...
Your dog poops in the car or dog peas
or you had rats or something like that.
You have to fully clean that area and then run an ozone machine.
But I see a lot of these other odor-eliminator things online
and I'm like, it doesn't make sense
because you could just buy an ozone generator.
It's significantly less expensive
and significantly more powerful and actually gets the work done.
But if you do get a call or you're dealing with
kind of an odor in your car,
you can't just mask the odor with an air freshener.
You have to remove the cause.
And so that's what I used to always tell people.
You have to remove the cause of the smell,
whether that was a rat inside or, again,
an Uber driver and someone threw up inside
or babies, milk, spill or something like that.
You have to clean it.
That's where the cabin cleaner also comes in really handy
because it is jam-packed with odor neutralizers
in the complete cabin cleaner formula
and then hitting it with an ozone generator
will completely eliminate any odors and smells
that are in the car.
But you have to remove the source.
If you oversaturate a car and it smells like mildew in the car,
you're going to have to re-shampoo the car
to get rid of that smell all the way.
Re-shampoo it, lightly don't oversaturate.
Again, run an ozone machine.
You might have to run an ozone machine a couple times
or you might have to run it for a longer duration
or something like that.
But again, removing the source first
is going to make sure you effectively remove the entire smell.
Number 10, working without a system or an order,
just like I talked about at the top of the video,
making sure you have your mindset right
and what different surfaces are in the car
and then a game plan working in layers.
But really creating a flow top to bottom,
back to front, left to right,
dividing things into zones is really helpful.
So like driver, passenger, rear, cargo,
front, trunk, whatever.
But really having a system helps build consistency
and then that consistency builds speed
and professionalism over time.
Interiors are a place that people reach out to me,
all the time and they constantly say how long they're taking.
They take way too long and I worked all day just on the interior.
Now I'm losing money if you're a detailer
or maybe you're just a DIY or doing at home
and you don't want to spend all day Saturday
working on the inside of your wife's car.
But if you create a system, create a flow,
create a game plan of not only what surfaces are in the car,
but how you're going to tackle this
and then you start tackling it in layers,
just like I talked about earlier.
It will really speed up the process
and then if you're a professional detailer,
obviously getting stuff done in an efficient manner
shows professionalism.
So definitely working with a system or an order can really help you
and it can help you be more, just deliver a better job too
because if you're just randomly bouncing all over the car,
you're inevitably going to have missed spots,
you're going to waste a bunch of time,
you're going to be going back over things that you already did
and so really having a system is going to help that.
And I will say too, just kind of as we wrap this up,
cleanliness is also felt, just not seen.
And this is where a lot of my products aren't scented heavily,
but the complete cabin cleaner I feel like has a perfect scent,
a perfect fresh scent and some people have even written in
and told me that they just do a couple extra sprays in a car
when they're done with the detail,
when they're even done with the symbol car wash
because it gives the customer opens the car and they smell it
and they're like, oh my gosh, if it smells clean, it must be clean.
So just remember that cleanliness is also felt,
it's experienced, it's not just seen.
But again, making sure you have streak free glass on the inside,
the seatbelts, then neutral scent,
you don't want it overpowering either,
but it gives the impression of a professional job.
So sometimes perception is reality, really.
And so helping and offering just a slight scent
really helps set that perception.
If you learned something new, drop a comment below, let me know.
What's your biggest interior detailing mistake
or lesson that you've learned?
These are honestly my 10 and I've just learned these through the years.
So if you want to try what I talked about,
the complete cabin cleaner, all dressed up,
microfiber towels, scrub buddy pad,
I will link them all below, of course.
And you can check everything out over on jimbusdetailing.com
and I also have everything up on Amazon as well,
which I will also link below.
So hope you guys learned something from that.
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Of course, if you're listening to this as a podcast,
which I assume you are.
If you use code podcast at jimbusdetailing.com,
I have a special gift for you.
And if you're going to spend over $100,
you get free shipping and use code first
and you will get a free XL massive drying towel,
which is a $30 value.
So it's like getting 30% off your order
over at jimbusdetailing.com.
Thank you for the support.
Podcasting is my favorite medium to do.
It's, you know, I've done it for over 10 years now,
11, over 11 years now, which is insane to think.
So I appreciate all the support
and yeah, I'll catch you guys on the next one.
See ya.
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About this episode
Exploring the top 10 interior detailing mistakes, this episode offers invaluable insights for both beginners and seasoned pros. The host shares personal experiences and lessons learned, emphasizing the importance of understanding different materials and surfaces in a vehicle. Key mistakes include overwetting fabrics, using all-purpose cleaners indiscriminately, and neglecting high-touch areas. The discussion also highlights the significance of a systematic approach to detailing, ensuring thoroughness and efficiency. With practical tips and product recommendations, listeners will gain a clearer understanding of how to achieve a professional finish.
Original notes
In this podcast, we're diving into the real interior detailing mistakes most beginners make — the ones that waste time, cause damage, or leave the car still feeling dirty even after you've "finished." These are the insights that separate pros from weekend warriors.
I'll walk you through my top 10 interior detailing mistakes (and how to fix them) — from using the wrong cleaners, over-wetting seats, and ignoring touch points, to skipping final inspection details that make your work stand out.
These are the little things that make a huge difference when it comes to efficiency, results, and how clean a car actually feels to the customer.
Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or a professional detailer, you'll get real-world, time-saving tips you can use right away to level up your interior game.
Products I use and recommend in this video:
Complete Cabin Cleaner – https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/complete-cabin-cleaner
All Dressed Up – https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/all-dressed-up
Softer Than Soft Towels – https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/softer-than-soft-microfiber-towel
Everyday Microfiber Towels – https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/everyday-microfiber
Scrub Buddy Pad 3-Pack – https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/scrub-buddy-pad-3-pack
All Blacked Out Applicators – https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/all-blacked-out-applicators
Also available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/JimbosDetailing
If you enjoyed this video, hit the like button, subscribe, and turn on notifications so you don't miss the next detailing tip or product demo.
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