Cleaning car covers?

[TJ Hopland]

How do you all clean your car covers?    Mine is an indoor cover I use over the winters.    Last few winters the car has lived in a barn with lots of dust and flaking paint as well as birds so it really needs a good cleaning.     I think I remember the instructions saying it was machine washable.   I question if it would fit in a typical home washer and then assume the wife would prefer to see maybe a pre wash before it went in.

Would like to hear how and where you wash yours.   

[walt chomosh #23510]

TJ,
  One method recommended by the cover companies is to just wash it on the car. Generally,I will go to the laundry and use an over sized washing machine. I suggest you contact the particular company where you bought their cover of their method of cleaning....walt...tulsa,ok

[David Greenburg]

It definitely varies depending on the type of cover. I have heard about washing on the car, but would check further on that before doing it to an indoor cover.

[31caddy]

This is just one of the reasons that I use these in my garage:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-PACK-16-X-24-5-LARGE-CLEAR-PLASTIC-UNIVERSAL-TEMPORARY-REUSEABLE-CAR-COVER-/331460710601?hash=item4d2c9910c9:m:mrWlWFe_bird4Hlm935DsOg&vxp=mtr

They are like a giant ladies shower cap ( the shower cap, not the lady) with elastic around the edge. After awhile, I just throw it away. The heavy regular type covers always get full of dust even under ideal storage conditions and wind up scratching your paint. These are handy for use at car shows as well, when an unexpected rain shower appears, as they take up very little room in the original package - about the size of a decorative throw cushion on a sofa.

[7gen]

I have a California Car Cover, Plushweave. The cleaning instructions for all the different fabrics they use in making their covers are at http://www.calcarcover.com/m_covercare

You might could figure out which fabric is close to whatever cover you have and go by the cleaning instructions from that site.

Note that the instructions there indicate "no center agitator" if machine washing.