Giving The Subaru A Spa Treatment!

 

Now that the weather is warming up I am turning my attention more toward outside projects and chores.  One of the projects I’ve been working on, once again, is the interior of the Subaru.  When I acquired this car back in January I was impressed with how much of the regular maintenance and all of the upgrades and repairs had been documented and kept up on.  The car had new tires and brakes done as well as oil changes and a few other things.  While the mechanical stuff was well attended, it was pretty obvious that the previous owner wasn’t too concerned with keeping a clean car.  When I bought it they did go ahead and vacuum it out and run it through the carwash, however it seriously needed a deep clean.  Inside, the care smelled really bad.  A mixture of horse barn and something else combine with a vanilla tree deodorizer, which quite frankly I don’t think was really helping matters all that much.

 

All of the seats looked like this

Once the weather started to warm up, and especially if the car was parked in the sun, the odor inside of that baby was much worse than when it was freezing cold outside.  It was a nice blast of some kind of special fragrance when I opened up the door.  I was chomping at the bit (pun intended) to get in there with my carpet shampooer and start cleaning seats and the carpet to finally eliminate those horsey smells.

 

Ewwww! 😖

I had already scrubbed up all the hard surfaces twice, vacuumed the entire inside twice and washed the inside of all the windows.  I had also left the sun roof open and windows down to air it out whenever I could but the only way to truly freshen up that car was to get those soft surfaces clean and for that I just needed on really warm day.  I finally got that.

 

Drivers side under the floormat

After a solid three hours of scrubbing and extracting I got all of the seats, headrests and carpeting clean.  I used spot remover on the seats and floorboards and vinegar water in the carpet shampooer.  A drill brush took up the dirt and stains from the upholstery and carpet while the vinegar water rinsed it all clean.  I didn’t stop until the water I was extracting ran clear.  By the time I finished the seat I had started with was dry so I left the car sitting in the driveway with the windows down and the sun roof open and let nature finish my hard work.

 

It's like brand new inside! 😲

Check out that clean seat!

Since then I have cleaned the interior once again, vacuumed the entire thing from one end to the other and rewashed all of the windows inside.  I also replaced the floor mats.  The original ones smelled so bad and were pretty worn out so I tossed them in the trash and bought a new set at the auto parts store.

 

Gorgeous!

Front to back - even the hatch got the treatment!

I also added this sunshade to protect her from the summer heat

Now I am officially done with refurbishing the interior of the car and can now enjoy opening the door and getting inside without hesitation.  It smells clean and fresh and looks absolutely amazing inside!  I am thrilled with how well it turned out, but even more importantly how much it doesn’t stink anymore.  I enjoy this car so much more now.  Hurray!