A whole bottle of some kind of car fluid spilled in my trunk this weekend. We’ve tried cleaning it up with rags, but it seems pretty well soaked into the trunk lining. I’m not so concerned about the trunk, but the fumes are pretty strong in the car and we have a lot of summer driving to do. Any advice?
Open the trunk and leave it out in the sun for a few hours.
Also spray liberal amounts of Baking Soda to absorb any moisture. After a couple hours vacuum out the baking soda.
It certainly would be helpful to know what kind of fluid.
I suggest removing the trunk lining material and cleaning it OUTSIDE the vehicle. Without knowing what spilled, I can’t recommend a cleaning product, but it’s much easier to clean it when it’s not in the trunk, and the liner will dry faster and more completely outside, as well.
Yea, trunk linings are easy to remove. They need not be put back right away. If you choose to go until September without a trunk lining, so be it.
“A whole bottle of some kind of car fluid spilled in my trunk this weekend.”
Fess up. What was it??
As others have said, remove the trunk liner and clean it, discard it, or replace it…
It was some kind of “high mileage fuel system cleaner.” We never used it-- obviously-- so I didn’t even remember what was floating around back there.
The lining didn’t seem that easy to remove, but I’ll look again.
So far, I’ve tried the baking soda method. If there isn’t much improvement, I’ll pull the lining out.
Let me know if you have any suggestions for cleaning products.
Thanks!
It depends on what the fluid was. Judging by what you said, it might be high in solvents, which would either have melted or at least bonded very well with the artificial fibers of the lining.
My suggestions:
Take the liner out and wash it in an environmentally conscious manner i.e. take it too a new self car wash (new car washes mostly have to abide by stricter environmental standards) and spray the ever living stink out of it (splurge on the shampoo cycle)
-or-
Use a carpet cleaning vacuum to clean out the liquid, but again, because the liquid is probably heavy on solvents, it will probably cause some damage to the plastics unless heavily diluted, hence see first suggestion. Again though, I would suggest you do this at a new car wash so you can dump the water in their muck trap.
Good luck,
Marc
Most fuel additives are 100% volatile, meaning they will completely evaporate with time… Open the trunk and let the sun shine in, maybe place a small fan in the trunk to speed up the drying process.