Interior Accident Clean -- Spillages, Paint, Smoke and Worse

Gary calls this part of the service "accident clean" -- and over 30 years the workshop has seen most of what can happen to a car interior. Three broad types: spillages and paint, biological contamination, and smoke and fire damage. Whatever the problem, act fast. The longer it sits, the deeper it goes and the harder it is to deal with.

Spillages -- Milk, Food and Paint

Milk is the most common. People spill a quarter of a litre, wipe the surface clean, and think that is the end of it. It is not. Some of it has already sunk through the carpet pile and into the foam underneath -- and carpet foam can be quite deep. The smell develops later, and by then it has spread to the other surfaces in the car. We start with an extraction machine and an injected deodorant product; if that does not reach all of it, the seat may need to come out to get to what has gone down the side and underneath.

Paint -- usually emulsion -- is similar. Wet paint is easier to deal with, but most people make the mistake of trying to clean it immediately, spread it around, and then it starts to dry. Gary's advice: get some wet towels, cover the painted area completely (treat it like a paintbrush you are keeping overnight -- stop the air getting to it), then bring the car to us. A toothbrush or microfibre cloth with hot soapy water on any small marks you have already transferred to seats or headrests, then cover the main spillage and drive it in. We extract and clean it from there. The key is not letting it cure. See our paint spill clean-up service.

Biological Contamination

Someone was sick in the car, or worse. Not pleasant, but we deal with it. The same principles apply -- extract, clean, deodorise -- but biological contamination can penetrate just as deep as milk, and sometimes a seat or trim panel needs to come out to get properly to the source. Call us first and we will talk you through what to do before you bring it in. See our interior accident clean service and odour removal.

Smoke and Fire Damage -- The Big Jobs

The most expensive job we have done was a set of three motorhomes stored in a building in Newark that caught fire. Two of them came to us smothered in soot from front to back. Gary stayed in a hotel for the duration; it took two to three weeks. They came out great.

The single most expensive individual car was worth around £200,000. The fire brigade drove it out of a burning house while the front was on fire. It came to us with the grille and front end burnt, and soot through the entire interior and underside. We had it for two to three weeks -- lifted it in the air, stripped the underside, cleaned and deodorised the whole thing. It went away without a mark.

The Swan

This one was a long time ago. A swan went straight through the centre of a windscreen on a car doing around 70mph. It hit the back seat and -- there is no other word for it -- exploded. The driver and passenger were fine; the swan went through the middle. We know how bad it was because when we lifted the boot carpet to get to the spare wheel, there was debris under there. Think about the force required for the impact to project material through the back seat, past the boot, under the carpet, beneath the spare wheel. We stripped the car to pieces and sent it back without a single mark. We draw the line somewhere these days, but that remains one of the most challenging jobs we have ever done.