Getting coolant out of the carpets

[molecular bob]

Hi All

I lost more coolant than I expected during the heater matrix replacement on my wife's c70 and the passenger footwell carpet is still sticky. What is the best approach for cleaning this up?

Thanks

[4x4]

Flush with water then shampoo

[SteveSarre]

Haven't done it for a while, but if you spilled a lot (or had a long term leak which failed to drain through the rubber drain tube) then coolant may have gone through and drenched the yellow foam beneath the plastic/rubber skin (if it has splits or holes) under the carpet under the removable mats.

In the past I have washed it out with warm water and wet vac, repeating as necessary. To get all the way down to the floor pan, I think you have to remove the trim on the threshold of the drivers door. To remove the whole front base mat, is quite a lot of work. (I think remove centre console and foot rest at left of pedal cluster). Don't remember if the front seats have to be lifted (hope not).

Then finally shampoo the top carpet as necessary.

HTH
Steve

[ITSv40]

The carpets in a C70 are seperate to the sound insulation underneath. Remove the front seat and then unclip the carpet and remove. Once out of the car wash using your preferred method and hang up to dry. I use Autoglym Machine Clean scrubbed with warm.water and a stiff brush then rinsed with the hose pipe until all traces of dirt and detergent have gone.

The passenger side comes out quite easily, but the drivers side footrest needs to be removed first. The plastic is located on two studs with keyhole fittings and needs to be slide up to release the keyholes. It can be quite stiff and need some force to get it to move and release.

[Luxobarge]

As above, warm water & a scrub, using lots of water and repeating a couple of times. Then dry out with a wet vac. When done, if you have a dehumidifier, then leaving that in for a couple of days helps a lot too. Bonus is that the carpets will be super clean when you're done!

[DaveNP]

We've got a few sunny days coming up but you might want to wait until the hotter days of summer, my recollection was that it took multiple washes to get most of it out, and ages to dry the carpet and undefelt.

[Familyman 90]

Carpet out, hot detergent jetwash to allow to dry naturally to avoid the carpet losing its shape, refit.

[Spawned66]

Make sure if you take the seats out you disconnect the negative battery lead. Otherwise you’ll get an SRS light.

[markas]

Hi
I had my heater matrix fail horribly fail. went on the roof lining trim and soaked all the carpet.
I used the turtle wax foam cleaner and soaking up with towels. in the end as suggested removed the seats and got the steam cleaner from Johnson’s cleaners, and steamed the carpet clean.
Markas

[capt jack]

I guess the other option is to try sourcing replacement carpet and sound-proofing?

I know when my old V70 matrix leaked it took ages to get the carpet really dry again, and the leak wasn't too bad. When I did the same job on the S70 I first removed the carpet completely. But it's easy to be wise after the event!

Bear in mind too, if you are a pet-owner, that antifreeze is sweet-smelling and poisonous to dogs.

Jack