Tested: Best Car Carpet Cleaners for 2022

Adam's Polishes Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner is our choice for Best Overall, thanks to its performance on both mud and wine stains. It worked quite well on mud, removing most of the stain in just 30 seconds.

Against the wine, the Adam's cleaner interestingly didn't produce that strange blue-colored reaction like many of the other cleaners. Regardless, the wine stain was completely gone, and no sign of it was left on the carpet.

It wasn't horribly messy to use and dried quite quickly. Our team agreed that the fruity scent was pleasant and far better than some of the other cleaners' smells. However, we know this is subjective; some folks might not want their interior smelling fruity.

Adam's carpet cleaner was effective, budget-friendly, and easy to use—and that's why it's our choice for Best Overall car carpet cleaner.

Meguiar's Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner comes with a scrubbing brush attachment to get deeper into the fibers of your car's carpet. This was noticeably effective against the mud stain, as it seemed to clean that slightly better than the Adam's Polishes cleaner.

Against the wine, though, it wasn't as effective as Adam's, which is why it finished in second. The scrubber brush is handy when detached, but it rotates when on the bottle—which kept it from really digging into and scrubbing the carpet.

The bottle releases a nice spray pattern, which foams quickly on the carpet. It did get sudsy but dried quickly compared to the other foaming cleaners.

For solid cleaning power paired with an effective scrubber, this is the bottle to get.

When it came to the mud stains, no cleaner removed them better than the Turtle Wax Power Out! Carpet and Mats Cleaner. The powerful foaming cleaner seemed to penetrate deep into the fibers, and the scrub brush was highly effective either attached to the bottle or detached and used by hand.

However, it struggled against the wine stain, leaving behind a pale pink square. The brush also pulled up a few strands of the carpet, so be cautious when you really need to scrub.

But for cleaning power on typical mud and dirt stains, this cleaner proved to be the top dog.

Wipes are typically ineffective against hardcore messes, but Armor All Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning Wipes surprised us. They performed quite well against the mud stain and decently against the wine stain, leaving behind just a slight pink hue.

The dispenser is a bit annoying, and the towels crumble up when scrubbing, making it tricky to really get in there. But results are results, and these performed quite well.

For convenience, these are king. Just throw the dispenser in your glove box and pull one out when you need it.

Chemical Guys Lightning Fast Stain Extractor was expected to smash the wine test, but it performed only so-so. It lifted the stain well initially, but upon scrubbing, it simply pushed the stain to the edge of the square, rather than lifting the stain with the microfiber towel. It performed okay against the mud stain too, but nothing notably superior.

We diluted it at a ratio of 10:1, per the bottle's instructions, but the solution was still quite foamy and didn't dry quickly or easily. Pair its mediocre performance with a strong chemical smell, and we'll have to pass on this usually reliable manufacturer's carpet cleaner.

The Turtle Wax Interior Cleaner with OXI comes in a bottle similar to the Power Out!, and the brush is identical. But the cleaner on the inside couldn't be more different. This stuff really struggled against the mud stain for some reason, despite identically rigorous scrubbing.

The OXI Interior Cleaner performed decently against the wine, leaving behind a slight pink tinge. The alkaline reaction was especially noticeable with this, and a striking blue color was produced during the foaming action.

The brush is nice, but it's useless if the chemicals can't remove even simple mud stains. Go for one of our top picks instead.

The Chemical Guys Carpet & Upholstery Shampoo was an interesting entry, being the only "shampoo" in our test. We diluted it 8:1 per bottle instructions and went to work, but the shampoo didn't return the favor. It performed okay against the dirt, and it was the worst of the bunch versus the wine.

It took a while to completely dry, and when it did, left behind a soapy residue. See the photo below for the wine results—the shampoo's square will speak for itself.

The only upside? It's a good value—with dilution, you get quite a bit for the price. But other than that, try one of the other products towards the top.

The Mothers Carpet & Upholster Cleaner performed the worst against our mud stain, and poorly against our wine stain. We even tried another round on the mud, and the result stayed the same, as seen in the photos below.

The alkaline reaction was strange, as it left a blue halo around where the stain used to be, which disappeared upon drying. However, some pink was still left behind. The only plus? This stuff doesn't have a smell.