Cigarette burn in my car's carpet. How do I fix it?

February 25, 2004 10:22 AM

Where's my karma? I did a good deed and was a designated driver this weekend. I let people smoke in the car as long as they kept the windows down. I keep my car's interior in pristine shape, absolutely no flaws. That is until I noticed a cheery mark the size of a dime on the floor. It just missed the mat. Is there anyway to get this out? I mean it's burned the carpeting (blue-grey fabric)... or at least make it look less junky? As someone who treats their car like porcelain this is devastating.
posted by geoff. to Home & Garden (4 answers total)

Find a less obvious source of carpet fleece, say, under the seat. Use a razor or exacto to scrape and collect fibers from there, collect them in a plastic baggie. Now scrape the burn are clean. Apply clear epoxy to the burn area, don't be sloppy, and then carefully drop a covering of the fresh carpet fleece to the wet epoxy, being careful not to smear it. Dry

Adapted from a fly-tying technique called dubbing. And thank you for letting your passengers smoke. No one lets me get away with it anymore.
posted by zaelic at 10:35 AM on February 25, 2004

Are there any hidden locations from which you could cut a tiny scrap of good carpet? If you can find one you can carefully cut out the burned spot and glue in a plug. I tried this once and you could still find the place, but only if you knew it was there.

On preview, zaelic's instructions are just right.
posted by jfuller at 10:37 AM on February 25, 2004

if found that simply cutting the burned fibers away hides it fairly well... any extra effort is gravy.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 12:42 PM on February 25, 2004

geoff - count your blessings.

But the last three replies are good too. I'd add : often it's not hard to remove automotive carpet (as one who used to do just that quite often) and the best place to cut it is from the back. That's an extreme solution though.
posted by troutfishing at 10:32 PM on February 25, 2004