How to Remove Mold from Your Car Interior Using White Vinegar and Budget Tools: BEFORE AND AFTER!

Before and after cleanup on the white mold removal in our 2013 Ford Escape

I'm not a certified auto pro but I like working on our cars and am usually not afraid to dig into something new (within reason of course)... well this past fall, we had a dense white mold outbreak in our 2013 Ford Escape and it was pretty gnarly in there and was time for DIY car mold removal.

Front seats are out. Time to move onto the backs.

I documented the process of stripping the interior out to get to the nooks and crannies and the seats and upholstery really ended up cleaning very well and there's no residual odor at this point or stains. Just wanted to share the success here if anyone else comes up against this as it's really not that hard, just elbow grease and being thorough and patient- tried my best to document below:

1. Suited up in a basic hardware store general full body painter's suit and a mask and glasses and gloves- could have been more heavy duty but it was just really for the initial roundup of the surface mold...
   

2. Removed any trash and larger debris from anywhere in reach from the interior.
   

3. Sprayed a 1:1 mixture of white vinegar and water on EVERY surface I could see regardless of what density of mold was present... saturated cloth surfaces, especially mold dense areas.
   

4. Over a short period of 30min, the vinegar/water mixture visibly reduced the surface mold appearance (although it's still there even if the surface mold is in the process of dying...) and I was able to use a shop vac (while wearing a mask of course) to pull up anything that was ready to be lifted off the seats, carpet, wall panels, headliner, etc. Make sure your shop vac filter is intact and in good working order as you don't want to sling mold spores out the back end!
   

5. Over the next 3 days, I left the windows cracked and fall sun/heat to come in and dry things out. The UV of the sun is a big inhibitor of the mold from coming back while things dry out, so we opened the sunroof shade, along with the darker tinted windows...
   

6. Removed front and rear seats and pulled out wet undermatting in the spare tire area where the initial problem had occurred... front seats needed to have the side airbags turned off, which was just pulling the correct fuse after disconnecting the battery for redundancy. (Side Note: If you have electronic seat positioning, you can reconnect your battery after the airbag fuse is pulled so that the airbag system is disabled, but you can still move your seat forward and backward to get to the bolts on the floor if that's a struggle at first- pull the 2 sets of bolts and then unplug the seat wire harness.
   

7. Tools used included:

   1. Round drill/brush attachments for a power drill,

   2. Some general automotive interior cleaner with Oxyclean,

   3. A cheapo steam cleaner - we got ours from Vevor and it worked great.

   4. An old bissel spot bot carpet extractor. Similar style here.

   5. A wal-mart package of assorted micro fibre cloths

   6. Some plastic trim tools to pry up the plastic push retainers for the interior upholstery, matting, and panels of course...
      

8. I'd use the steam to dislodge any thick areas of buildup that didn't lift up earlier with the shop vac. You don't need a massive auto detailing steamer. A simple home steamer that has a steady output and a brush attachment will work ok for agitation and heat.
   

9. I followed up with the scrubbing bubbles cleaner and drill brush attachment, and then used the extractor to pull it all out. A heated extractor will help too to lift things out of the carpeting. This doesn't mean your extractor needs to be expensive. My bissel unit we used is probably over a decade old and I picked it up for cheap on Facebook marketplace...
   

10. For hard plastic surfaces, you can use the steam and agitator brush on the steamer to lift up any other splotches or debris- don't spend too long in one place as the heat from the steamer may discolor or warp interior plastic. Do quick, even, circular motions and follow up with a constantly swapping cloth or micro fiber towel. The steam will condense quickly, and will run. You want to follow up as fast as the drips are happening to avoid streaks of released material settling back onto your working surface. It's super satisfying to get those cupholders looking brand spanking new...

11. When you're doing soft touch surfaces like skinned foams and things, don't use a brush attachment on your steamer as some of those can rub out some texturing or surface finishing on those surfaces. Try to just use the steam a short distance from the surface and follow up with a SOFT bristle brush or microfibre cloth to gently loosen and absorb any material that you can lift up. Again, move quickly across surfaces and make a few passes rather than lingering in one spot just for precaution of the steam/heat.
    

12. For doing headliners, you want to keep a cloth as ready and handy as possible and it needs to be clean. The steam will release the dirt from the material, but you want to use the towel or cloth to soak up the junk that is newly dislodged without streaking it to a different place in the headliner. Also, most headliners have adhesive in them, so again, don't linger too long with the steamer in one place. You don't want to cause delamination of the headliner. Blotting and small strokes of a clean cloth will really help when using steam in these upper areas!
    

13. As for the hard to get areas, there are a few areas like the HVAC system where I did remove the cabin air filter and swapped it with a new one. I have read that an Ozone machine will kill any mold or spores inside the ductwork, and that you can also shoot steam into the ducts and help to kill things that way as well. However, when got to this part in the process, the weather started to cool off and I was nervous about more condensation occurring in the cold ducts when shooting steam into it and then repeating the moisture cycle all over again so I have not done a thorough HVAC clean, but I also have not smelled anything from the vents, nor seen any debris exiting them, and even after the system has been running with the new cabin filter, I haven't had a reason to expect that it is a source of concern at this point.
    

14. Finally, we have let everything sit with the doors open on some sunny breezy afternoons and the car honestly smells brand new and LOOKS brand new too. Pretty stoked that even though it took some elbow grease over a few days, I was able to do it with probably $200 of materials and secondhand tools all-in, and I can keep using the steamer for around the house things, and the pet extractor for messes with our kids at home.
    

Video is here if you'd like to see the overview and the steps- hope this has been helpful to some wondering if it's doable with little to no prior experience- I'm SURE there are better ways to do it and more thorough/efficient means, and more sanitary/guaranteed ways to kill mold. However, this is what we tried and it seemed to work so I wanted to share. Something to note also- this was WHITE mold. Not sure I would have wanted to try and save the car if it had been black mold.

To the left is the tutorial on removing the front seats with airbag safety in mind...

To the right is the tutorial for pulling the rear seats.

Good luck and comment below with any thoughts, questions, or tips for improvement!