Most of us have a car that gets messier than we would like to admit. A professional detailer who posts as @TheDetailGeek just took on a 2015 Jeep Wrangler that had gone a lot further than that.
According to him, the interior had never been cleaned since the owner bought it, eight years and 184,000 kilometers earlier.
The owner dropped it off after dark and joked that it was pretty dirty. When the detailer said he had surely seen worse, the owner had a warning ready. “To which he responds, ‘I’m not sure you have,’” the detailer recalls at 2:19.
A Jeep Wrangler With A Stuck Top And A Stuck Tailgate
The outside came first, and even that was tricky. The zippers on the soft top no longer closed, so he had to keep the pressure washer away from the open spots. If water reached the dusty interior, he says, he would be cleaning mud.
The tailgate was stuck shut, too. Since the owner already had a new top, he told the detailer he could cut the old one off. So that is what he did, which also opened up the back.
The Mouse Nest Under The Back Seat
With the rear seat out, he finally saw the full scope of the job. He estimated at least 12 hours for the interior alone.
Then came the worst find of the day. “There’s a mouse nest in here along with a number of baby mice that died inside the vehicle,” he says at 8:41. He cleaned that up before doing anything else.
Dog hair was the next battle. It was woven deep into the carpet, and he says it was the worst-case mix of hair type and carpet. A pet-hair brush pulled out most of it, and a vacuum and extractor handled the rest.
The front seats wouldn’t come out either. One rear seat bolt couldn’t be reached with a wrench, and the mechanism meant to tip the seat forward appeared to be seized. That meant cleaning around them in place. He wore a respirator for the smell, and he guesses that gravel roads and the broken top let in all that dust.
Bringing The Jeep Wrangler Back
He scrubbed the interior plastics with a strong cleaner, then dressed them with a matte protectant. The carpets were shampooed and extracted.
Outside, there was some good news. The paint was in really good shape and not heavily swirled, he says, so a ceramic spray coating was enough to make it shine. Finally, the black exterior plastic got a protectant as well.
How To Keep Your Own Interior From Getting This Bad
A few simple habits would have saved this Jeep Wrangler a lot of trouble:
- Vacuum regularly, especially if a dog rides along. Hair gets harder to remove the longer it sits.
- Fix a soft top that won’t close, or dust and water will keep getting inside.
- Check under the seats now and then. Crumbs and clutter invite mice.
- Get a deep clean every year or two, before the job turns into a full day.
- Keep seat bolts and moving parts working, so the seats can come out when they need to.
Where The Jeep Wrangler Stands
In the end, he calls it the second-longest detail he has ever done. “It took 18 hours to undo the mess in this Jeep,” he says at 23:17.
The Jeep ended up with a clean cabin and shining paint, ready for the new top the owner already has waiting.
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