I recently picked up a car where the previous owner was a smoker. The inside of the car smells like Joe Camel, the Marlboro Man, and Smokey the Bear had an ass orgy it is that strong. I’m not too up on all the detailing products so I was wondering if anyone has any info as to what would help to remedy this situation? I’m thinking something that is designed to neutralize the odor, not just cover it up with another scent, if somthing exists.
Febreze Auto worked well for a friend in a similar situation
I’ve used the regular Fabreeze in my car a few times and it worked well to get rid of the smell of winter funk. I’ll see about the auto fabreeze, thanks for the heads up.
Take it to a detailer with an ozone generator.
http://www.benzworld.org/forums/detailing-car-care/1240873-ozone-generators.html
This is probably a long shot but a thorough cleaning should improve it alot… Otherwise an ozone generator(which isnt tremendous on hard surfaces repeatedly) should eliminate the smell. Changing the cabin filter should help tremendously if its not new as well…
Smokers cars take some patience as the smoke gets EVERYWHERE and is absorbed and otherwise takes different amounts of time for the smell to “leave” the different materials.
What have you done so far?
what did you do? Buy JoeTypeS’s AMG?
I was going to try and do everything I can short of taking it to a detailer. But, I have a feeling that in the end I’m going to just say F it and take it in. Thanks for the info Jay.
I just bought it yesterday, so not too much. However, I did take out the factory VW carpet floor mats as they were filthy and tan. One of them looked like someone smeared shit on them they were that bad visualy. I also realized when I brought them in just how bad they too smelled like smoke. I scrubbed them in my sink with a spray bottle filled with Mr. Clean and went over them with a green scrubby pad and then washed them in the washing machine with scalding hot water. I did this mainly due to the fact that they were dirty but it did make them look, and also smell, pretty damn good good. I wish I could throw the whole huge carpet from the car in my washing machine.
I hear what you are saying about the smoke getting EVERYWHERE, as everytime I turned on the heat I got a nice blast of smokey heat:fu:
I wish, I bought some dude bro’s Mk4 Jetta.
Sounds like you’re never going to get the smell out just cleaning.
Yeah, you have to clean everything you can reach and you can do that yourself to save money but there are tons of places you can’t get to that are also marinated in smoke. The ozone generator will get into all those places the smoke has gone.
my buddys dad used to have a tahoe that he bought from a smoker. smell was so bad that no matter how good you cleaned it it would still smell if it sat in the sun. he ended u stripping the entire inside panels, seats, headliner and carpet. he used regular soap and water on panels and leather, replaced the carpet, and thoroughly cleaned the headliner. smelled like new when he put it back together.
Wow, thats dedication. I think I’m going to clean/detail it thoroughly, and then just take it to a shop and have them blast it with that ozone generating machine to get the last of the odor out. I figure that way it will be cheaper then having them do a full detail yet still get rid of the smoke cloud of death.
If it’s real bad and the vents have the tar build up in it you more than likely will have to take all that shit appart to REALLY get the smell out. Or cut your losses and clean and spray it down with some fragrance.
X…
I was actually really surprised how well it worked to get the smoke smell out. And for $3 a bottle, it’s definitely at least worth a shot before you try more expensive, labor-intensive means.
My friend bought a few bottles, then absolutely went to town on everything fabric/porous and then let it sit for a day to dry and vent with the windows open. This was in warmer weather, though.
take it to a pro with an ozone generator and also replace the cabin filters. nothing over the counter will work and stripping the whole interior down is retarded. plus, if you pay somebody and it doesn’t work, you can bitch at them to fix it.
i had a smokey car once. I managed to get rid of the majority of the issue by taking out the front and back seats and carpet shampooing the entire interior (floor, headliner, anything fabric) repeatedly. The seats also got a good shampooing while out of the car. Let it all dry and repeat the process. They make soap for those household shampoo machines that does a really good job at neutralizing odor.
And as mentioned, replace the cabin filter. Armor-all should help a lot as well. If you really want the smoke to be gone, it’s going to take some elbow work.
I’ve owned a bunch of smokers cars, maybe none as bad as yours, but its always gone away after a little while. I usually just do a normal interior cleaning, spray way too much oust and auto-fabreeze and leave the windows open for a little while. Go to a yard and get new ashtrays.
On one of my old cars(that probably had it the worst) I was re-doing the interior anyway so I pulled the carpet and took it to a car-wash. Then I let it soak in what was probably unsafe concoction of random cleaners in a trash can for about a day. Then rinsed it out really well. A lot of the sound deadening was destroyed and I had to soak it again with some black rit dye and touch it up with the black duplicolor stuff but it looked pretty good and smelled no more.
I also re-did the headliner, pulled every plastic piece, and wiped down everything.
Smoker’s cars seem to build up a layer of crud on the opposite side of the plastic interior panels. The metal underneath also gets disgusting and the area around the center console is always bad and it always seems to be due to smoking.
You probably don’t want to tear it all down but when I did it it was a very cheap way to get the car to have no smell. Never smelled like smoke, or cleaners again.
I’ve done the same thing to cars without taking out the headliner or soaking the carpet and it works pretty well too.
Right now my project car smells like baked ass and I can’t figure out why. Smells like something died in there literally. I wouldn’t be that surprised to find something horrible even though it looks clean. I’ll be getting to the bottom of it with a complete tear down this spring. Tearing them down also feels good because you find tons of wrappers, coins, and other random nonsense that you can throw out. One time I found a little plastic skeleton in between the steering column cover pieces.
I appreciate all the info guys, thanks again.
Maybe I’m amking it out to be way worse then it really is as I think I have a very strong sense of smell for cigarettes. I’m going to try the automotive fabreeze a few time and thproughly clean the carpets and headliner.
If I’m still not happy I’ll take it to a place with an ozone machine. My GF’s parents have one of those in there living room, is that the same as the ones for cars? It is about the size of a small space heater, about a foot by foot cube size if I remember correctly.
Also, this person didn’t use the ash tray as it is filled with girls hair pins and change, so there isn’t that filmy nasty shit there like you see in some cars. Nor are there any burn holes which was nice.
It’s probably not,
You’re not supposed to be in the same room when an ozonator is running, it’s not good for you. I Have one but they’re expensive as shit, we bought one to get rid of the smell of fire when our house burned, it was ran for like 3 days (not 3 days straight) and the smell finally went away
try and get ahold of one if you can.
For house fires, they make shit to spray down your drywall to help get rid of the smell of fire/smoke. Try and get a bottle (they sell it at like Ace hardware and shit), and spray that on everything that is plastic and vynl, and then obv wipe it off and dry it lol, and then clean them with some regular interior cleaner
and then idk, vacuum the rest out and hope for the best …, maybe spray it with fbreeze or w/e, and put an air freshener in the car lol
Everything was basicly covered, do a good detail on the car (Scrub all fabric, clean all surfaces) then run an Ozone Generator. If that doesn’t work have the fabric Extracted (by a detailer, Machine process that gets deeper then regular scrubbing/shampooing)
just buy a shit load of those little trees
most cars i buy i pull the entire interior and give it a good cleaning. even my 02 subaru i took the majority of the interior out.
i hang the carpet on a large wall, spray it down with some degreaser and then hose it down till its completely rinsed out.
the vent system is going to be a problem for you without an ozonator. for some cars, ive taken the heater box out but thats usually due to mice nests.
Brian