Best Car Carpet Cleaners for 2023, Tested

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Stains on your floorboards? Here are the eight best carpet cleaners for your ride.

Your vehicle's carpet goes through some of the worst torture imaginable. From slushy boots and muddy paws to ketchup stains and fallen Jolly Ranchers, it's amazing how dirty it can get. That said, a clean carpet is one of the easiest ways to upgrade your vehicle's interior. But what's the best way to do that? We gathered eight different car carpet cleaners and put them through the Gear Team wringer.

First, we taped off sections of floor mats and mucked them up with "Pure Michigan" mud. After letting that mess soak in, we stomped the mud around with our shoes, then vacuumed up the chunks left behind. Each section had a comparable blot of mud remaining. But what about other stains?

While we obviously don't endorse an alcoholic escapade while driving, we wanted to use something that's known for leaving gnarly stains. So we picked up a bottle of red wine—purely for visual testing purposes, of course.

During testing, we noticed a strange chemical reaction. Many of the cleaners produced a blue color which, it turns out, is due to the alkalinity of the cleaners clashing with the pigments in the wine. (Chemistry is interesting.) However, once dried, any leftover wine remained only as a slight pink hue on the carpet.

So don't be afraid of scary stains in your car's carpet; it's all part of the upkeep. While dirty carpets will take some elbow grease no matter what product you use, the end result is worth it. After our testing, here are our picks for the best car carpet cleaners.

Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners

Adam's Polishes Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner is our choice for Best Overall, thanks to its performance on both mud and wine stains. It worked quite well on mud, removing most of the stain in just 30 seconds.

Against the wine, the Adam's cleaner interestingly didn't produce that strange blue-colored reaction like many of the other cleaners. Regardless, the wine stain was completely gone, and no sign of it was left on the carpet.

It wasn't horribly messy to use and dried quite quickly. Our team agreed that the fruity scent was pleasant and far better than some of the other cleaners' smells. However, we know this is subjective; some folks might not want their interior smelling fruity.

Adam's carpet cleaner was effective, budget-friendly, and easy to use—and that's why it's our choice for Best Overall car carpet cleaner.

Meguiar's Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner comes with a scrubbing brush attachment to get deeper into the fibers of your car's carpet. This was noticeably effective against the mud stain, as it seemed to clean that slightly better than the Adam's Polishes cleaner.

Against the wine, though, it wasn't as effective as Adam's, which is why it finished in second. The scrubber brush is handy when detached, but it rotates when on the bottle—which kept it from really digging into and scrubbing the carpet.

The bottle releases a nice spray pattern, which foams quickly on the carpet. It did get sudsy but dried quickly compared to the other foaming cleaners.

For solid cleaning power paired with an effective scrubber, this is the bottle to get.

Mud stain results from left to right, top to bottom: Meguiar's, Turtle Wax Interior, Armor All, Turtle Wax Power Out!

When it came to the mud stains, no cleaner removed them better than the Turtle Wax Power Out! Carpet and Mats Cleaner. The powerful foaming cleaner seemed to penetrate deep into the fibers, and the scrub brush was highly effective either attached to the bottle or detached and used by hand.

However, it struggled against the wine stain, leaving behind a pale pink square. The brush also pulled up a few strands of the carpet, so be cautious when you really need to scrub.

But for cleaning power on typical mud and dirt stains, this cleaner proved to be the top dog.

Wipes are typically ineffective against hardcore messes, but Armor All Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning Wipes surprised us. They performed quite well against the mud stain and decently against the wine stain, leaving behind just a slight pink hue.

The dispenser is a bit annoying, and the towels crumble up when scrubbing, making it tricky to really get in there. But results are results, and these performed quite well.

For convenience, these are king. Just throw the dispenser in your glove box and pull one out when you need it.

Mud stain results from left to right, top to bottom: Mother's, Chemical Guys Stain Extractor, Adam's Polishes, Chemical Guys Shampoo

Chemical Guys Lightning Fast Stain Extractor was expected to smash the wine test, but it performed only so-so. It lifted the stain well initially, but upon scrubbing, it simply pushed the stain to the edge of the square, rather than lifting the stain with the microfiber towel. It performed okay against the mud stain too, but nothing notably superior.

We diluted it at a ratio of 10:1, per the bottle's instructions, but the solution was still quite foamy and didn't dry quickly or easily. Pair its mediocre performance with a strong chemical smell, and we'll have to pass on this usually reliable manufacturer's carpet cleaner.

The Turtle Wax Interior Cleaner with OXI comes in a bottle similar to the Power Out!, and the brush is identical. But the cleaner on the inside couldn't be more different. This stuff really struggled against the mud stain for some reason, despite identically rigorous scrubbing.

The OXI Interior Cleaner performed decently against the wine, leaving behind a slight pink tinge. The alkaline reaction was especially noticeable with this, and a striking blue color was produced during the foaming action.

The brush is nice, but it's useless if the chemicals can't remove even simple mud stains. Go for one of our top picks instead.

Wine stain results from left to right, top to bottom: Mother's, Chemical Guys Stain Extractor, Meguiar's, Turtle Wax Interior, Adam's Polishes, Chemical Guys Shampoo, Armor All, Turtle Wax Power Out!

The Chemical Guys Carpet & Upholstery Shampoo was an interesting entry, being the only "shampoo" in our test. We diluted it 8:1 per bottle instructions and went to work, but the shampoo didn't return the favor. It performed okay against the dirt, and it was the worst of the bunch versus the wine.

It took a while to completely dry, and when it did, left behind a soapy residue. See the photo below for the wine results—the shampoo's square will speak for itself.

The only upside? It's a good value—with dilution, you get quite a bit for the price. But other than that, try one of the other products towards the top.

The Mothers Carpet & Upholster Cleaner performed the worst against our mud stain, and poorly against our wine stain. We even tried another round on the mud, and the result stayed the same, as seen in the photos below.

The alkaline reaction was strange, as it left a blue halo around where the stain used to be, which disappeared upon drying. However, some pink was still left behind. The only plus? This stuff doesn't have a smell.

When we tested car carpet cleaners, we wanted to try them out on two different stains. The mud stain is a naturally occurring splotch, while the wine stain is a more striking, difficult stain. We wanted to see which carpet cleaner could tackle both most effectively.

We bought three new car mats and taped off different sections—eight for the mud and eight for the wine. We made the mud with dirt from right outside the Car and Driver office and poured an even blot on each square. We then smushed it in with a shoe, and vacuumed up the large, dry chunks.

Next, we poured a similar pattern of red wine on the eight untainted squares, let it dry, and attacked it with each cleaner.

To attempt to clean each stain, we sprayed each cleaner on the spot and let it sit for 15 seconds. We then scrubbed the stain with either a microfiber or bottle brush—depending on the cleaner—for 30 seconds. After that, we dabbed the spot dry with a separate microfiber and noted the following observations: performance, drying time, residue, smell, mess, and bottle brush if applicable.

Once the tests were completed, we felt satisfied that each cleaner was judged equally without bias.

Carpets in your vehicle are designed to handle much more abuse than your everyday house carpet. The fibers are tougher and much denser to cope with endless pairs of dirty shoes. This makes them hang onto dirt, dust, and other crud with annoying tenacity. Any time you have to clean your vehicle's carpet, be prepared to put in some work.

We recommend vacuuming twice a month or so, depending on how often you use your car. When it comes to cleaning with a chemical, do a good deep clean every spring, and then spot clean whenever you have a stain pop up.

Auto detailers usually have professional steam cleaners and hot water extractors. The typical vehicle owner doesn't need to own one of these big, expensive machines—that's why they make sprays like this. Cheap and convenient!

Yes! This is very important. Vacuum up as many chunks as you can with a shop vac or a handheld car vacuum—here are some of our recommendations—before hitting with the spray. You don't want to be rubbing any chunks of yuck deeper into your carpet as you scrub, so get as much out as you can beforehand.

Car and Driver and its sibling publications at Hearst Autos combine the forces, talent, and knowledge of three of the largest, most influential automotive publications in the world. With these incredible tools at our disposal, we don't have to worry about gaming search engines to get traffic or promoting lousy products just to make a sale. Rather, we're concerned with our legacy, our reputation, and most of all the trust that you, our readers, have in Autoweek, Car and Driver, and Road & Track. We know you rely on us to give it to you straight, and we promise to deliver the truth, every time.

To mirror our values, this test was conducted in an environment that provided equal testing procedures for each product: the Car and Driver garage. We tested each cleaner on both mud and wine stains, and measured how well each stain was cleaned. We documented this, along with sprayer ergonomics, drying time, smell, and anything else we thought was worth noting. Upon tallying up our findings, we agreed that our test was fair, legitimate, and provided the best information for us to recommend our picks to you, the reader. In the end, that's what matters most.

Read more about our product testing and evaluation process here.

Collin Morgan is an Associate Commerce Editor at Hearst Autos, where the former Rust Belt mechanic and gadget enthusiast presents the best gear for your automotive endeavors.

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