:yikes: Yeah, I know, this is a weird one. It's not directly for me - it's for some people on a non-detailing forum I visit occasionally. Here is the link to the thread. Cliff's Notes: vehicle owner has kids. Kid sat in tar at the beach. Kid then sat in car. Tar is now on cloth upholstery. My first reaction was "time for a new seat cover," but then I got to thinking...the cover is probably ruined anyway, so may as well try to fix it. Here's what I've thought of so far... - Steam - Tardis - Heavy solvent-based upholstery cleaner, like the one Majestic sells Obviously, tested in a hidden area first to make sure it won't ruin the upholstery. Tardis is pretty magical on tar, but I see two problems. First, it could ruin the seat worse than it's already been ruined. Second, if it gets into the foam of the seat - and it probably will - the whole car will smell like Tardis for weeks. Which leads me back to steam. What say you?
Only thing I could think of is that Tardis is about 40% Xylene which is a very strong solvent that can melt foam. I do not use Tardis, I use pure Xylene to get tar away but I do know that it can melt foam and would not use it with the fabric on the seat. I would take the seatcover off and try it and give it a good wash after. I do not know if it will compramize the fibers in the fabric but it very well could.
I read the link that you posted and a few things I would try is: 1. Use a heavy duty fabric cleaner let it sit and use a extractor and see how much can come off. 2. Take it to a fabric cleaning specific place and see what they could do 3. Just try Tardis and see what happens to the seat cover after you take it off the seat 4. Just will have to sick it up and get a seat cover. May find one in a junk yard.
Mineral spirits is the other part of Tardis, about 40-50%. M.S. work well at dissolving tar and I completely forgot about this. In trying everything I think the safe thing would be to take the seat cover off, or unzip it and place cardboard between the fabric and foam.
