Convertible Beetle | Dirty Roof Video

You can see that somebody has had a go at cleaning this with a jet washer, which makes sense on the face of things, but it's really not the way to clean a convertible roof.

So, how do you clean a convertible roof? People ask us all the time, assuming there is some magic product to do it. The truth is that it requires a good detergent and lots of elbow grease. If you have a mechanical brush like we do, it does take out 80% of the elbow grease, but it still takes a lot of effort. Clean, rinse, repeat, until it's clean. Sometimes we might have to scrub a hood like this 3-4 times, washing it through until the water runs clear. What you can't do is blast it off with a pressure washer, as you would with a concrete driveway, your fabric hood is too delicate for that. 

Once cleaned, it is dried, because you can't put waterproof hydrophobic coatings onto a wet roof. So the roof has to be bone dry before we can proceed. And once the coating is applied, this has to be allowed to dry before it can go out in the rain.

But with it all done, this coating will help protect the roof for two years. It won't repel water for all that time as dust will get on it, breaking the surface tension, but it will prevent the roof from getting soggy when it rains, and it also contains antifungals chemicals which retard the growth of more moss and lichen. You will need to clean your roof regularly, but it should be much easier.

If you feel your roof after it rains, it should only be damp, if it's sopping wet, then it's soaking up water instead of repelling it, and it's time you get a coating.