Removing Road Salt Stains from Your Car’s Interior
Whether you love the snow or hate it, there’s one casualty that winter is bound to bring: dirty cars. It’s easy to spot cars that are caked with salt residue. Most people will wait for a sunny day and wash their car, but what about the inside?
If you think road salt is just on the exterior of your car, that isn’t the case. Often road salt will make its way into the carpet of your car from your winter boots.
What Exactly is Road Salt?
Road salt, or sodium chloride, is very similar to table salt except that it’s larger and hasn’t been purified. Table salt is purified and has iodine added to it to ensure it’s safe to be consumed.
Road salt is generally mined with dynamite and then hauled away and broken apart. To make the delivery of road salt easier and prevent the minerals from sticking together, it typically contains additives that can be harmful to your vehicle if left for too long.
How Bad Can it be?
The issue of road salt in your vehicle’s carpet is more than just the unsightly stains. Sodium chloride is known to be corrosive on its own, but the added chemicals aren’t any better. Road salt on your car’s interior can damage the fibers of the cloth and create holes. If the road salt gets down to the frame of your car it could cause your car to rust.
The Best Way to Remove Road Salt
The good news is that you don’t need fancy cleaners to remove road salt from your car’s interior. The following steps are a great way to remove road salt from your vehicle:
- Vacuum any visible pieces of road salt from your car’s interior.
- Mix one-part white distilled vinegar and one part water. For stubborn stains, you can add a ½ cup of carpet shampoo, but most road salt stains can be removed with the vinegar and water mixture.
- Dip a cloth into the mixture and blot onto the stained areas. For best results let the mixture sit for 15 minutes.
- Use a clean rag to wipe the mixture from your interior, repeating the steps until the stain is removed.
Our vehicles are important investments that can help us move our lives forward. While we can’t avoid road salt making its way into our vehicles altogether, we can do our best to clean and remove any stains.
About Pole Position Auto Body in Warren, MI
Pole Position Auto Body is an auto body repair shop that has been providing MASSIVE customer service in Warren, MI for over 30 years. Our highly qualified technicians will restore your vehicle in the quickest turnaround time possible – almost 3 days quicker than the average repair facility.
