On this week’s show, we heard from Sarah, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her 2004 Jeep Wrangler has a little problem-- seems Sarah was eating a chocolate bar, and accidentally dropped a piece of it, which promptly melted into the upholstery.
How can she get the stain out? Tom and Ray suggested strong detergent and water. Or, get the car detailed. But, we know many of you have other suggestions-- and we’d love to hear them.
Share them right here-- and thanks!
The lackeys of Car Talk Plaza
I use Turtle Wax ‘PowerOut.’ It’s a carpet cleaner that works amazingly, and is fairly cheap. I’ve used it to get out, among other things, gum, chocolate, coffee, salt, dirt (obviously,) pop, and probably more stuff.
Just think of it, not as a stain, but as a good way to store a snack if you should ever get stranded someplace.
I’ve found that a half-and-half mix of vinegar and water works wonders on both cloth seats and carpets. I’ve got four kids under eight years of age, so I’ve had some experience with stains.
Sarah…
Try the Mister Clean Magic Sponge. I recently cleaned black ink (computer inkjet) from my beige carpet. There’s no sign that any ink was ever there! I just used clear water with the sponge and them blotted it up with paper towels. Marthac32413
The same thing happened to me. I even incubated the chocolate by sitting on it for at least 200 miles. Fortunately, I had a can of pressurized carpet cleaner at hand. So, I recommend: first remove any chocolate that you can by hand, then spray the stain. Leave standing for 5-10 minutes, and clean with warm water & sponge. Looks as good as before.
I have learned through bitter (chocolate) experience NOT to scrub as that usually just spreads not only the material itself around, but in scrubbing you clean a larger area which often results in you realizing just how dirty the entire seat/sofa/whatever is. Better to BLOT. With chocolate you can actually use a hair dryer to warm it (if thick) and blot up as much as possible.
Then I swear by SHOUT spray (prefer non-gel). Moisten area, let sit and blot. May or may not require more than one application but evidently the little enzymes in the product like chocolate as much as the rest of us do.
Being guttonish, they also appear to like wine, coffee, most foods and, yes, cat pee. Bon appetit, mine Shout.
I have found that hand cleaner (without the pumice) works very well on stains in fabric. I have never tried it with chocolate, but it may be worth a try.
Give Go Jo (cream) a try.
Tom
I’m not Martha Stewart, but I am a chocolatier/ herbalist. Sarah needs to get out a hair dryer or heat gun and absorbent paper towels.
Chocolate melts at anywhere from 103 degrees (white chocolate) up to 133 degrees for some types of dark chocolate.
After melting the chocolate, she can blot it up and then keeping it warm, follow cleaning instructions.
BTW- For herbal aphrodisiac or mental clarity dark
chocolate truffles, go to my website www.chocolix.com
It is best to try NOT eating chocolate in the car. Women just have to do it and I have to let them do it. Oh well, that’s life.
I know nothing about cars but stains I can handle! saturate it in hair spray. It is kinda scary I get my stains out with what I put in my hair but I promise it works!
A detailer could remove it probably pretty cheaply.
And it could be worse. When my kids were little my son left opened on the seat of our new minivan, on a hot summer day, a brand new large box of crayons. When we came back to the car from our outing there was a large box of hollow paper tubes sitting in a pool of melted crayon wax that was well down into the fabric. There is absolutely no way to get that out. We enjoyed the van for the next six years complete with stain.
Try this: a product called RESOLVE. I had a chocolate stain on my cloth upholstery for a month. Sprayed the spot, rubbed it with warm water, the stain came right out. You cant even see it now. Simply amazing. I continued spraying all throughout the car, now my used 2006 Legacy looks brand spanking new.
I heard just lately that shaving cream. puta little on the stain and rub it gently then clean off with a clean moist rag.