Cleaning Alacantara Door Panels

[Alex Kowalski]

A long while back, some listers may remember, I started a thread about cleaning Alacantara upholstery.  Louis Alain-Richard responded with a few suggestions and then the thread moved on into a discussion of a source for Alacantara fabric in the U.S. (Alacantara is also known as Ultrasuede and in fact, you can find the single U.S. automotive aftermarket distro. listed on the http://www.ultrasuede.com website -- Gulf Fabrics, Inc., in the beautiful state of Florida, from whom you can buy not just one, but TWO kinds of Alacantara in all sorts of different colors.)

Anyway, yesterday I was inspired while I had my door panels off, and decided to try and clean the alacantara panel inserts.  In particular, I removed the front driver's panel, which had a pretty gross "elbow grease" type of stain ground into it.  The fabric itself is also a little distressed, but not too badly -- the dirt was the really the worst part of the blemish.

I used about 2oz. of mild dishwashing liquid mixed with about a 2 tablespoons of Oxy-clean granules in 3 gallons of lukewarm water.  I took a soft sponge and slowly swabbed the entire surface of the alacantara, wringing the sponge often and working with relatively light pressure.  There was just enough detergent in the water to create a few suds, it wasn't a foam party.  

After doing that several times, I took the panel over to the kitchen sink, inverted it, and used the aerated sprinkler attachment to thoroughly rinse the insert with cold water.  Then I used paper towels to blot it dry, followed up with a hairdryer set on low heat for about 5 minutes to get most of the water out.  Yes, I rinsed it in the kitchen sink and used a hairdryer to dry it.  Luckily, I don't have a wife to tell me not to do these things, but the flipside of that situation presents certain problems that suggest themselves from time to time as well, so...  ;-)

Then I let it sit overnight to dry completely.  But before I did that, I sprayed a tiny circle of spot remover on the excess piece of trim that is usually hidden, wrapped inconspicuously around the back of the panel near the A-pillar, to test the reaction of the fabric.

In the morning, the results were really spectacular.  The panel dried perfectly and the color and touch of the fabric were restored to almost-new condition.  There was still a little bit of a stain, right near the top double-stitched seam in the panel, where presumably the PO had rested his/her elbow.  The area I sprayed the spot remover on looked great, so I tried it on this area -- and was able to remove virtually all traces of that stain.  I blotted the area again with a damp sponge and some cool water, let it dry for another few minutes, and voila!

Now, it's not perfect -- the fabric still shows some abrasive wear, which simply cannot be undone.  But it is clean, and the grimy dirt is no longer in evidence.  If I really wanted to get obsessive, I would use one of those motorized lint clippers very gently on the surface of the fabric.  

I decided to try this since it looks like I might be spending the money I had budgeted for alacantara reupholstery for transmission repairs.  And the results were good enough that I might just nix the idea entirely -- I can live with a little sign of use, but the dirt really bothered me, because the fabric is a light cream beige and it was really an eyesore, at least to me.

So, before you write off those alacantara inserts on your door panels, take the panels off and try cleaning them.  Worked for me!

And of course, the car drives MUCH, MUCH better now that the door panel is clean. ;-)

Cheers,
Alex Kowalski
'87 5KCSTQ