If you are a car owner of a roadster, convertible or a pick-up truck, you are familiar with the hassles of keeping tonneau covers clean. Maintaining covers depend on its use (whether cover for passenger seats or cargo compartments). Maintaining your cover’s, original look, not only improves the durability of the covers but also the aesthetic beauty of your car. To this end, it is important to know what to use and how to clean your covers.
Before you embark on restoring the shine on your tonneau, it’s important to first appreciate that each material has a custom cleaning method or agents. Plastic covers, for instance, are cleaned differently from their fabric counterparts. In addition to this, “military grade” hardcovers have distinct demands from their retractable or rolling soft counterparts.
Not everyone has the luxury of consulting the owner’s manual that usually comes with your covers. If you are that person don’t worry. Cleaning isn’t rocket science.
Things to Consider Before You Start Cleaning
There are several factors that inform how you are going to clean your covers. Mostly hard surfaces are cleaned abrasively compared to their softer counterparts. Surfaces like pick up track cargo compartments often have extra dirt as opposed to passenger seat covers in convertibles.
Some dirt can be easily scrapped off before cleaning properly with agents. Take care not to scrape or poke holes as that will make your tonneau start leaking.
Cleaning Fabric Tonneau Covers
Just like clothes, fabric tonneaus are sensitive and using too much abrasive mechanical pressure may end up compromising the quality of your covers.
A perfect balance of mechanical cleaning force, use of gentle detergents or cleaning agents comes in handy in maintaining the integrity of your cover. Here are some of the steps to follow.
- Using a soft brush, dust the fabric covers, removing loose stains from the surface. Begin from the centre towards the edges.
- Soak the fabric in water to loosen any stubborn stain and dirt that wasn’t successfully removed by the brushing action.
- The next step is the application of the fabric tonneau cleaner. However, this is done while the fabric is still wet.
- Given the sensitivity of the fabric, it is advisable to use a soft nylon brush, a sponge or a soft damp cloth. This ensures the fibers of your covers are not disruptively cut by the cleaning action.
5Just as in the case of clothes, rinsing off the cleaning agent is the final step. It helps especially if the cleaning agent has a strong smell. In addition to this, the dissolved dirt in the cleaning agent is washed off with the rinsing water giving your cover a glowing new look.
Cleaning Hardcovers (plastic) Tonneaus
Hardcover plastics are less sensitive compared to their fabric counterparts. In addition to this, their choice of use in luggage compartments and exposure to the elements means that they accumulate varied and more types of dirt.
Cleaning your hardcover shouldn’t be a hassle; after all, you have the pass to even use a hard brush to scrape off dirt.
- An easy dusting using a broom especially after an off-road dusty drive can come in handy before dabbling into the use of cleaning agents. It is usually advisable to clean from the centre of the cover slowly progressing to the edges where the dust can be pushed outside.
- In case your surface is littered with stubborn dirt that need scrapping (mostly if wet soil comes in contact with the surface), you can use a relatively hard brush to remove them.
- Alternatively, if the mechanical force doesn’t yield much in dirt removal, you can opt to remove the cover and soak the cover in water. Plastic being impermeable ensures easy use of the pressure from a hosepipe to remove the stain. Another option is pouring some water to the surface and letting it settle for a few minutes preferably minutes allow for the stubborn stains and dirt to dissolve in the water.
- You can proceed to pour half a cup of car washing solution in a warm water bucket.
- Next, dip a brush into the bucket for a while to absorb the cleaning agent that offers UV protection then proceed to clean the tonneau. Alternatively, you can use a sponge to do the cleaning.
- Movement of the brush is crucial for cleaning. It is usually advisable to clean from the center towards the edges of the covers. This allows for proper movement of the dirt to the edges where they can be pushed out. Relevant pressure is also advisable considering certain stains may require hard scrubbing.
- The final step is rinsing the covers and letting it dry.
There you have it a simple guide to cleaning your tonneau covers.