Alcantara steering wheel cleaning

[M3_Power 636]

So my recent acquisition came with a fairly grubby alcantara steering wheel.

I was originally thinking about just selling it, but knowing that I have successfully cleaned quite a few of these I decided to give this one a go again. Not the worst one I have come across.

 

condition before clean - this corner was the clean side lol!

decided to do the top half first to show the difference

post cleaning first stage

contrast top (cleaned) and bottom (original state)

Edited November 4, 2016 by M3_Power

[CSET 583]

Very nice! Bet that's satisfying haha. Care to share your technique?

[E30-323ti 66]

+1  and does it work on suede?

my mod-08 is looking a bit grubby

[m325i 709]

Congrats!

[BreakMyWindow 1874]

On 07/11/2016 at 5:39 PM, CSET said:

Very nice! Bet that's satisfying haha. Care to share your technique?

Water, brush, mf towels and lots of patience ?

[CSET 583]

Yeah that's almost the same as what I do to restore alcantara - but keen to learn if there's a better way as it's massively time consuming..!

@M3_Power?

[M3_Power 636]

Here is what I wrote on another forum

 

The solution isn't that important to be honest.

Here in this instance I used a generic sneaker foam cleaner that you can buy from most shoe stores - these work great at lifting dirt. I've also tried dedicated alcantara cleaners to a self made warm soapy water solution (with real soap flakes) and they all work the same to be honest and give much the same results.

It's actually what you use to apply the solution and how you wipe off the dirt that matters and dictate what sort of results you get.

I have found tooth brush to be too harsh on the Alcantara ... remember Alcantara is just polyester based fibers, so it is actually quite resilient if you use the right tools to clean it. Treat it like a piece of fabric.

The way I do it is to really soak the fabric before I lift the dirt from it. If you rub it dry it will pile. Use a tooth brush and it will pile. Rub in a circular motion it will pile. Do so in straight lines in both directions and it won't pile or knot.

The best results I get is actually to use baby wipes ... dried out ones to be exact, and then wet it in the solution you want to apply. Blot onto steering wheel quite a few times till it is reasonably wet, and use another to wipe and rub and take as much dirt as you can out of the Alcantara - Yes I said "rub" .. the baby wipes will pile up before the alcantara will and when it does change it. The key here is to change it as often as you can.

In this steering wheel it took me about 10 minutes and about 15 baby wipes to get it to that state. Quite a quick process actually.

This method of course doesn't work on all the steering wheels. You have to look at the condition of the fabric. If it's is already piled this method will lift the dirty but you will need to shave the excess piling afterwards to get it looking good again. When Alcantara fibers starts to unravel it's a bit of s slippery slope but with a bit of patience and a good shaver you can get it looking pretty new again.

Hope this helps : )