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Not the sexiest topic, I know, but I'd like to get the sand out of my trunk and it's a challenge. I tried vacuuming (with a full-sized vac, not a "Dust Buster") and the sand is so embedded in the trunk material that it hardly budged. Any suggestions? Shampoo? A commercial cleaner (and who does this)? I'm sensitive to strong chemical and fragrance smells so it would have to be something that doesn't leave the trunk smelling like a perfume factory.

are you sensitive to sand now too?

i have plastic mats throughout my SUV which has a badass all plastic trunk for that reason, but whenever i do go after the seats and carpet i use the auto parts store carpet cleaner and a nylon brush. Generous application with minor scrubbing seems to suspend dirt grime sand etc enough to suck it all out with a shop vac. I follow up with garage shirts to get the last bit of grime slash dry it up. Not willing to work any harder than that when i know its just going to get sandy and smelly of turd ave the next time i go kite. I wish the house vacuum was as powerful as my shop vac then my wife wouldn't complain as much

My *understanding* is sand is made of glass/quartz/silica. From Wikipedia:

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles. The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal settings is silica (silicon dioxide, or SiO2), usually in the form of quartz.

Therefore, I would think suction and/or gravity would be the best things to help remove sand. I'm no chemical engineer or soil scientist, but that'd have to be some gnarly shampoo to remove quartz/silica from carpet! ;^)

Just turn your car over and shake it, silly!

Kirk out

WindMuch is right, using shampoo to try and get sand out of the carpet is like trying to lay asphalt for a road with a paint brush.

Suction or gravity. Take the carpet out if you can and beat it upside down. If can't, suction is the only way to go and it WILL take a while because the carpet fibers are good at trapping sand particles.

If you've ever seen gold mining, discovery channel perhaps, "miner's moss" is essentially a less fibrous form of carpet that is used to trap gold particles. Sand is washed out by water stream while the gold is caught in the miner's moss because it settles faster.

I leave a cheap wool blanket that I got at an Army Surplus store draped over the area of my trunk. I drive a wagon, and often the seats are down anyway, so I like to cover everything as there are lots of cracks. The wool traps the sand well, and it's super easy to shake out once in a while. I only have to vacuum 1-2 times a summer and it usually get's the remainder out without much effort.

I did my annual car clean last weekend
Small broom and Roomba works for me
Very gratifying to see Roomba go to town on small patch of floorboard and trunk and transform it from sandy to dandy :)

I use a sears shop vac and a lint remover for fine sand that stayed in the carpet when my car get really dirty and sandy. My old hoover vacuum cleaner and lint remover seem to do the trick for me though.

You can go to a self serve car wash and try their vacuum there. I think its the same thing that they use on rental cars.

Or, just like Kirk said, just turn your car over and shake it like you mean it.

Buy a beater, preferably with a sand color interior. Hog bristle hand brush out what u can, and embrace all that remains. Cheap blanket as a liner is sound advice, but the best place to check is any rental car company in one of the many sandy tourist destinations and ask them. It blows me away how every rental car i return is covered in sand, but every one i pick up is super clean. Either im the only a@$ hole that returns their rental car full of sand or enterprise holds a valuble secret. I am curious to know how they do it, but if i find out, i probably wont bother with it as i am convinced its the sand that holds my cars together anymore.

Col.kiteman wrote:Buy a beater, preferably with a sand color interior. Hog bristle hand brush out what u can, and embrace all that remains. Cheap blanket as a liner is sound advice, but the best place to check is any rental car company in one of the many sandy tourist destinations and ask them. It blows me away how every rental car i return is covered in sand, but every one i pick up is super clean. Either im the only a@$ hole that returns their rental car full of sand or enterprise holds a valuble secret. I am curious to know how they do it, but if i find out, i probably wont bother with it as i am convinced its the sand that holds my cars together anymore.

This is easily the best answer on this thread.

I have this issue, and asked around.
A guy who works for me used to detail cars for a dealership and this was his recommendation for sand in the carpets:
Air compressor with clean up nozzle and a shop vac;
blow the sand up towards the shop vac nozzle, gets all of the sand up/out.

Also works for the thatch from soccer fields that the kids seems to track
in after a damp practice.

Good luck,
Pete