Cleaning/dying car carpet

I just spent the morning pulling the carpet out of a car in the junkyard. Its disgusting and not the right color, but will do for now. 

Couple of questions:

1. What product can I use to clean this mess? My plan was to vacuum, then pressure wash it and finally douse it with some sort of cleaner and pressure wash it again. Does that sound like a good plan? And what cleaner to use?

2. The carpet is beige. It needs to be gray, could probably be fine black as well. Whats a good product to die this with?

Side notes:

- Its HOT.
- Never thought I would need to start bringing sunscreen to the junkyard.
- Its really HOT outside.

Thanks!

This is what I am dealing with:

It has some sort of closed cell foam backing that I hope cleans up:

Pressure washer and purple power to clean 

Rit dye is a spray bottle for color. 

Looks like it's for the e30 BMW in the background.  You can get carpet cleaner in a spray can at the store, Woolite is the brand I've used.  https://www.bissell.com/woolite-sprays-foams-and-carpet-stain-removers  Use that with a nylon scrub brush, then pressure wash to rinse and lay it out in the driveway to dry.  Be gentle when cleaning the backing foam, I wouldn't use pressure wash on it.  SEM makes automotive color dye for carpets.  https://www.semproducts.com/product/color-coattm-aerosols/aerosols

I did that very job, exactly as described. Nasty grey carpet. I did pull all the backing off. Did it in the driveway; used purple stuff. Washed soap out about 15 times, over the course of a week! I'm not exaggerating. Pressure washed to running clear, let sit in sun all day. Rinse again that evening, tons of soapy water. Repeat. All week!

Came our clean smelling, but several stains showed. OK. Black will be ok for this. Mixed up a spray bottle of Rit die, to die it grey, and followed directions. 
Came out a nice gray, bairly darker than orig. , and almost all stains covered. 
Since I wanted gray, anyway, all good!

Have not tried a color change, but try the black; it might give you a gray ya like!

I just finished vacuuming it and it looks way better. A couple of cigarette burn marks showed up that I had not seen, hopefully there is no smell. 

I'll get Purple Pwr. and some of that Woolite and start cleaning. 
 

In reply to stuart in mn :

Close! Its for the e36 peaking out in the very back. I removed the carpet many years ago, but need a manual car to start teaching my son how to drive and the heat is brutal with no carpet. Even with the AC on, the transmission tunnel is like a furnace. 

Hopefully this will help for a few months until he gets the hang of it and gets his own car. 

In reply to 03Panther :

I am expecting this will take several washes. Hopefully we get no rain, which is impossible here in the summer. 

I use one of these drill brushes on carpets and it works really well. 

My secret weapon cleaning any auto interior is Folex carpet spot and stain remover. If Folex can't get the stain out its time to grab lacquer thinner or something crazy like that.

A long time ago we did some spray die, it worked on, but was a little stiff. And it did dust off some, without any real color change. 

If I were to do it again- rit. And a wading pool to throw away. 

I've changed color using SEM vinyl dye sprayed with a gun.

First day went well. Got some brushes, and some Purple Power. 

I wish I would've seen WillG80's post, because it was a pain to brush by hand as the suds kept fighting me and the brush was slippery. I think I saw Folex at HD, might pick up some tomorrow as there are a couple of stubborn spots. 

Its not perfect, but I am quite happy. 

My cleaning kit, just wish I had a couple of saw horses to hang it from so the water runs out easier. 

This are today's results:

alfadriver said:

A long time ago we did some spray die, it worked on, but was a little stiff. And it did dust off some, without any real color change. 

If I were to do it again- rit. And a wading pool to throw away. 

This is my fear. 

The little pool is a good idea, but this thing is huge. 

Slippery said:

In reply to 03Panther :

I am expecting this will take several washes. Hopefully we get no rain, which is impossible here in the summer. 

I was glad it rained a couple times... soap suds came out of that thing forever! It was all quite nice when I was done, and smelled good to!

In reply to 03Panther :

Yeah the suds are never ending! 
 

stuart in mn said:

Looks like it's for the e30 BMW in the background.  You can get carpet cleaner in a spray can at the store, Woolite is the brand I've used.  https://www.bissell.com/woolite-sprays-foams-and-carpet-stain-removers  Use that with a nylon scrub brush, then pressure wash to rinse and lay it out in the driveway to dry.  Be gentle when cleaning the backing foam, I wouldn't use pressure wash on it.  SEM makes automotive color dye for carpets.  https://www.semproducts.com/product/color-coattm-aerosols/aerosols

I can't find any SEM locally, closest store is over an hour away and who knows if they really have it. 

Going to order this online. Any idea of how many cans to die the carpet? I was thinking of ordering two cans. 

I mixed a very inexpensive bottle of Rit into a spray bottle... might have used 1/4 of it. Sprayed on, brushed in with a scrub brush, and also used a concrete "push brush"

SEM Color Coat is an amazing product.  I have used it many times over the course of 25+ years.  It is my trusted go-to product for recoloring plastic and vinyl surfaces.  But it tends to dry sort of stiff and might be too heavy a coating for carpet.

I was going to recommend Plasti-Kote Fabric Paint for carpet, as I used it many years ago to darken up some faded black carpet, and it worked really well.  It stiffened the fibers up a little, but nothing permanent.  But apparently Plasti-Kote has been absorbed by Dupli-Color.

Here's the stuff I wanted to recommend:

Here's the current offering from DupliColor (LINK):

I don't know if they're the same product or not, or if the DupliColor stuff is better or worse.  If you can find any of the PlastiKote stuff anywhere it may be worth grabbing it. Whatever you end up with, try it on an area that won't be seen when installed.  Hopefully something will give you a good result...

Curiosity got the better of me.  Here's a YouTube clip of a guy changing beige carpet to black in a BMW (E30?) with DupliColor Vinyl & Fabric:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf0t-wDNhec

Here's another of the same product on carpet in a 300ZX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZHVYCVwJwo

Looks like it might not be horrible!

I couldn't find any of these aerosol cans locally. I ordered SEM through O'Reilly and picked it up today. Three cans, came to about $80 .

I looked at the tiny color charts online for hours and decided on 15183 "Warm Gray". 

I just did a quick test on one of the pieces. Looks too light to me, but we'll see after I apply a couple of coats this weekend. 

If I don't like it, I will try the Plastikote that DarkMonohue suggested. 

This is what I am going for and below is what I got so far after a quick spray. 

I think 15393 "Medium Gray" is what I want. I will order it today and exchange two of the cans for that.