I want to clean my cover, which is stained with oil from a (since repaired) leak. Last time I washed it in the bath tub by hand with dishwashing liquid for soap. Can I just stick it in the washer? Any recommendations?
I take mine to a commercial laundry and tell them to wash it at the lowest temperature, about 30C, which they almost always fail to do and it shrinks so much it barely fits. So next time I will hang it somewhere and scrub it with washing up liquid and hose it down while it is hanging up.
I did once put it in a washing machine (an £800 Miele) and it broke it. We had to throw the machine away 
How could it break the machine?
I think it was too heavy. I wasn’t popular afterwards
Inside washing machines are some hoses which flex to take up the out of balance forces on the drum, and if the drum shakes too much, it rips off these hoses and you get a lot of water coming out. This is far from my area of expertise but I think modern washing machines try to deal with an out of balance load by shaking the contents around until it is reasonably balanced, but if there is just one single item it can’t do that.
We have a washing machine for horse rugs, which are essentially very similar to aircraft covers. Ours can take 18 kg of load. Most domestic washing machines can take a maximum of 8 or 9 kg
Before we had this machine my wife used to lay the rugs out on a concrete yard and wash them with a pressure washer. Sometimes she added detergent to the feeder in the pressure washer. It seemed to work quite well.
you can always go to a self laundery they always have very large washing machines 15-20kg for about 5 euro/pounds you will get it washed takes about 30-45min
https://greenandclean.store/preisliste/ these ones are in Vienna up to 26kg!!! OK just a bit more than 5euros lol
If I was doing mine, I Would choose a really warm day. Leave the cover on the aircraft, and spot treat the stains with detergent and local scrubbing.
Then soak the whole thing with water/ car shampoo and give it a scrub over.
A car scrubbing broom/brush on a pole thing will make life easier. Then rinse and wait for it to mostly dry.
Take it off and go fly to make sure there’s no water somewhere in the airframe that shouldn’t be,
Winkey face, Winkey face.
Then when you refit the cover, it’ll only be as wet as if it had just rained.
In most camping shops or online you can get a good re-proofer.
Fabsil gold is ok but there’s one from Renovo for car Hoods which I find superior.
Cambrai Covers have some good guidance on their website and links to some suitable products for refurbishing their covers..
