BlackLead
Well-known member
I picked this up at Lowe's some time back, but only recently got around to using it. It's not exactly a garage tool, but it works really well for cleaning the carpets in my cars. This is not the one with the built-in heater; I understand those are problematic. With this one you use hot water mixed with the formula they provided. We have a Ford 500 that sees daily duty as a child chauffeur service, and I was really surprised at how well this thing cleaned. The **** that came out of the carpet was nasty black; looked like old soft drink spills. I had no idea it was down in there. This unit is small and light enough to sit in the car as you work, and won't deafen you. To do a whole car you will definitely be filling it more than once. It has a floating valve in the receiving bottle end that cuts the air flow when it's too full, so you know to dump it by the change in sound. The vacuum head is a good size for getting into tight places. The vacuum hose is very soft, which is good and bad; if you're not careful it will kink pretty easily, so watch what you're doing. I used our wet-or-dry prior to using this to get the loose dirt, as this is probably best for deep cleaning. No funky odors, no wet carpet, and it smells a lot nicer when you're done. I have to admit, I didn't expect much from it when I bought it, and thought I'd probably be bringing it back, but I'm glad to be proved wrong. It's nice when something actually works as advertised. 