To answer the question that I know you are thinking, yes these are really my car mats.
You may think I am disgusting after seeing the floor mats from my mini-van. It’s true, I have four kids that LOVE to spill, spit, and on occasion barf in the car. It’s gross, I agree, but, here is a look into my life on a daily basis. We basically live in the car on some days of the week. Thursdays are especially crazy for us. We simultaneously have dance and cub scouts at the exact same time every Thursday AND, in order to get to dance on time we have to pick up our kids from school in order to make it. If you have kids, I’m sure you can relate.
Here you go here’s the disgusting floor mats from my car: 
But don’t worry, I have a solution. My friend Liz has a mini-van too {a Honda Odyssey like mine}, and she gave me the advice to just throw the removable floor mats in the washing machine! WHAT?!? It couldn’t be that easy, right?!?
I figured I had nothing to lose because I had tried to clean them before by just spraying them off with a power washer with a little laundry soap, but it didn’t work very well. So, I tried it. But, before I put them in the washer, I sprayed them down with the miracle stain remover that I’ve blogged about before.
And voila, look what happened… 
The floor mats were a little bleached out when they came out of the washer, but I could care less.
I still can’t believe I let the mats get this dirty before I took the bull by the horns.
Some of the mats came a little cleaner than others, but believe me I was happy to get them looking this good.
So, to break it down in two easy steps in case you missed it:
Step 1: Spray your mats with the best homemade stain remover ever.
Step 2: Throw the mats into the washer (with detergent like you usually do).
Step 3: Lay them out to dry.
The end.
January 14, 2013 19 Comments
Wow, what a difference. I'd love to try this but I am a little worried about ruining the washing machine.
Adrienne,
FYI: I only washed a few at a time, and the machine was totally fine.
I just asked my hubby about this and he said to mention that we do have high capacity front loaders. I hope that helps.
I just through all of my floor mats from my van in my washer… saying a small prayer that I don't ruin the washer. LOL. Um, did you do a regular cycle or a gentle… and what happened during the Spin/draining time. Did your washer get off balance with such a heavy load… Really hoping mine works out well and that i will have super clean mats in a little while.
when you mix up the detergent with the peroxide, do you just mix what you need or can it be stored?
I washed the mats in a few separate loads so the washer wasn't full to the max. And I have a front loader so it doesn't have the balancing issue. I also forgot to mention that I add laundry detergent to the washer also. Good Luck!!
Maureen,
I just mix up a spray bottle and store it. I use it a lot with my regular laundry so I go through it pretty quick. But as far as I can tell it works great for a few weeks.
Is regular setting o.k. or did you put it on gentle? Also, what temperature was the water? Thanks, would love to try this!
I am going out to my Honda Odyssey @ 10.07 pm to try this. Mine were so nasty I slung them in the back 2 days ago. THANKS A MILLION!
Ok, I seriously need to do this! My floor mats look TERRIBLE! My husband laughs at me because I am so particular about our house being clean…but get in my car…and it's DISGUSTING! He says I live two separate lives.
OOPS! Thanks for the tips!
Eloisa,
And no it was not on gentle. Gentle would probably have not done the trick. As you can see they were GROSS!!!
I think I just left my settings as normal. So, I think it was on warm/cold.
Patrina! Good luck! I hope you didn't freeze going out that late to get your mats! Mine looked so bad {as you can tell by the pictures} that I was desperate. So, for me it was totally worth trying because I couldn't take it any longer!!
Mandy! Ha! I swear with kids it's impossible to keep anything clean all the time. My husband is also obsessed with having a clean car. Tell Jeff to relax.
We have a Honda Odyssey too (love it!) and we bought the all-season rubber mats. They are awesome but it didn't include one for the back row so I will definitely have to try this on that one! Thanks so much for sharing…I had no idea you could do this!
Amy
http://www.homesweetthriftyhome.com
Thanks for sharing!!! Just did this on my '06 Honda Civic mats (only washed once, like 4 yrs ago, and they didn't get very clean) ….I sprayed them all, and to experiment I only scrubbed one (just lightly to get it sudsy and more into the fabric.)I washed all them together and I did gentle cycle, water temp. HOT, and added detergent–only the one I scrubbed came clean, but it was SPOTLESS, looks brand new.(I took pics, so I could compare, and WOW!) So I took the 2 other mats and did the same thing as the other but did REGULAR cycle, instead of gentle, and they came out SPOTLESS also!!
Thanks so much!!!!!!! (Now to try this solution on the actual car seat)
We don't have Dawn here in the UK so does anyone have any idea which of the Fairy Liquid colours would work? Thank!
I did this tonight and it was a huge pinterest fail for me. I have a front loader HE washer (5 mo. old) and there were suds everywhere (luckily they stayed in the machine). I couldn't even see in the washing machine there were so many suds. I washed just two small mats so I didn't overcrowd the washing machine. My machine tried for 2 hours to get the suds out during the spin cycle (it kept saying it had 8 min. left, but b/c it's a newer load sensing machine it just kept working hard to get all those suds out). FINALLY an uneven symbol came on and unlocked the machine so I could get the mats out and hand wash them.
I re-read your instructions and did exactly what you did and actually used the solution minimally. I re-read my washing machine manual and it says to only use HE detergent which is what I use, but I think the dawn is what caused the problem. My manual says that if you add non-HE detergent it will cause too many suds. I'm sure that was the problem.
I am not blaming you, Brooke, as you've given me lots of great advice, but I just wanted to come back with my feedback in case anyone else has a newer LG HE front loader….beware!
Wow Kimberly, I'm speechless. I guess the type of machine you use makes a big difference. I am glad you came back to leave your experience. Maybe it will help someone else who has your type of machine.
I have front loader HE Kenmore machines and they work like a charm every time. BUT, I don't spray a ton of the solution on the mats, I just spray the stains. So, maybe the amount of dawn solution also impacts the result.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Just cleaned my mats. Maytag front loader
suds. I knew that adding the dawn was going to get suds everywhere so I put a couple of towels in front of the machine. It did have trouble with the suds, but let it run overnight.
In the morning I noticed that there was still dirty, extremely dirty water in the bottom of the washer. I did a quick search and found that the pump filter was clogged. I didn’t even know washers had filters. Unscrewed some screws under the front of the machine to get access. When I pulled the filter out all of the water came out with it.
After using the wet vac to clean up the water I took the mats out back and sprayed them with water to make sure all the suds and dirty water were off and now they are drying. They are tan so I didn’t expect them to look new with all the dark stains, but they look much, much better and I cleaned the washer filter in the process