Blech, my car reeks!

[mischiefgrrl]

First of all, I'm not overly fond of the vehicle I drive. I couldn't afford my pretty new German car anymore and bought this one for $2k several years ago. I was able to pay cash and drive it out and it was a decent mediocre car with A/C and great gas mileage so I was happy. It was cheaply manufactured and has since been a target for every hit and run jerk in a parking lot and car burglar. The passenger door is stuck in the locked position because an idiot thief broke it while trying to jimmy the lock.

I don't care for it like I normally would a car. When I wash it, it looks worse than when it's dirty because the dents from the hit and run drivers show even more. I still run it through a car wash every two weeks anyway.

When I moved to LA last February, I had the car packed to the roof when we ran out of room in the U-Haul truck. Some of the stuff still hasn't made it out of the trunk and passenger area. This means I also haven't vacuumed the car since last February.

So tonight I decided I'd had enough of having a trash can for a car and decided while I was at the car wash I was going to throw this stuff out that I hadn't bothered to unpack for so many months. I also found the steering wheel cover that I just had to have but never bothered to put on. It was also in the passenger area. I pulled everything but that out and threw it away and then put the cover on. Holy crap it stinks! Apparently it caught every single ash that had blown away from the ashtray in all of those months. I always wiped down the console whenever I saw ashes on it but didn't realize they were collecting elsewhere in the car. Between the car wash and home I had a 30 minute drive and all I could smell was ashtray from kicking all of that up. I stopped at a store and bought a bottle of Febreeze just so I could tolerate the rest of the way home. In the morning on the way to work I'm going to be armed with cleaner and paper towels. I plan on wiping everything down while waiting at red lights. I'm a multi-tasker and I have a lot of red lights between home and work.

So if you're in LA and you see some crazy blonde wiping down the dashboard, console, roof and windows on the road. That's me and my car smells like a giant ashtray.

I'm so glad I was never foolish enough to think that no one would smell that and always found a way out of giving anyone a ride in my crapmobile.

 

[chief druid]

hahaha i giggled all the way through that!!!

 

[rjp44]

Fabreze works great for getting the smoke smell out.

 

[Keef]

Fabreze does not get smell out of something, it coats it and traps the smell in there.

Vinegar, baking soda and coffee are all good for absorbing smells.

You use them seperately not mixed together.

I like sachets of freshly ground coffee best , if you dont have beans and a grinder I guess coffee bags would do, that is if they still make the vile things.

 

[Porphy]

After I started vaping I came here to find a way to get the stink out of my balcony and found quite a few people that replied with succesful methods that they used to get rid of the smell in their cars. Here's what I found:

1.) Find a shallow tupperware container. Line the bottom with one or two papers towels lightly soaked in white vinegar and place it under your seats for a day or two.

2.) Dust the seats and carpets with baking soda. Let it sit for a day then vacuum it out.

3.) Sit a small bowl of ground coffee under your seats for a few days (3-5).

I've ordered the list from quickest and most effective to longest and least effective. All the methods work but you'll use a lot of coffee and get results a tad slower than if you go with white vinegar or baking soda. I've helped 4 friends now remove the smell from their cars after they switched to vaping and we've got this down to a science

 

[jabonsu]

Yes the baking soda always worked best for me! I just sprinkled it everywhere, let it sit, then vac it out. I use it on my carpets at home too! Just don't forget the roof of your car....that's where a lot of smoke collects! I washed mine with sanitizing wipes....you woulnt believe how black those wipes were when I was done!

 

[Nepenthy]

I was a window asher and always thought my ashes were making it out of the window. After I smoked my last analog I decided to super clean my car to get the smell out that I knew Id be able to detect once I wasnt smoking for a week or two. Ashes everywhere! This whole time I thought the ashes were being sucked out the window, apparently alot of it just was blowing back into the car, into the back seat. Id been ashing on my kids for years, so ashamed...

 

[thewomenfolk]

Now that I've got my sense of smell back, after a thorough car washing, I can smell the tobacco smell that I thought I'd avoided....not real strong but it's there. I forgot all about washing the roof inside. Good suggestion. I can't wait til this car smells good again. Funny what a picky non-smoker I've become.

 

[juicy97]

Id been ashing on my kids for years, so ashamed...

I'm sorry, but this made me LMAO. Only because I guess I've been doing it too.

Please, nobody tell my husband about these methods. I'm trying to use this as an excuse to get a new car out of the deal.

 

[JerriB]

You just made me (and hubs) laugh our ... off way too much this early! Good luck and thank you!

 

[i3lurred]

OK, heres what you do.
Step 1 -Rip out all carpet and upholstery
Step 2 -Go Find a spray on truck liner dealer
Step 3 -Bribe a tech to spray the entire interior of your car
- Now anyone can smoke in your car and all you have to do is spray it out with a hose!

 

[jj2]

Odo Ban!!! Once you use it, you will never go back to Fabreze. Odo Ban doesn’t cover, it kills.
My son is a slob--what can I say, I tried.
A while back he was using our garage to work on his car. It was a three or four day job and he borrowed his Dad's car to go to work.
While it was there, I decided to clean it. There's stuff in there that's been there for years. No one could tell there was a back seat or a floor in the trunk. Which by the way, a trunk so full you couldn’t put another thing in and expect it to close.
Then there was this vanilla stuff he kept spraying to cover up the building smell---partly due to water leaking in on the front floor board which took him months to get around to fixing.

First thing: I used a dry cleaner sheet to do something about the roof. Then I got out the Swiffer, 409, rags, toothbrush and my Eureka steamer and went to work. When it got down to the fabric stuff, I got out the shampooer: While I put in the shampoo, I put in a good helping of Odo Ban. Even if I couldn’t reach the area, it got sprayed down.

While I was doing this the preacher came by and was shocked. He even kissed my hand (as yulky as it was) and said thank you because he’d been a passenger in it a few times.

My grand finale was washing the windows a half dozen times and then made everything inside that was vinyl look pretty with Armor All.

As an after thought, I dumped the vanilla spray and replaced it with Odo Ban, just in case the smell decided to come back. So far it hasn’t.

 

[mischiefgrrl]

I won't be putting much effort into restoring this car. That would be begging for something terrible to happen. Every time I've tried to be nice to it, wax it, steam clean, etc. Someone hits it or breaks something on it. No joke - the last time I spent an entire weekend applying two layers of wax by hand and cleaning every single groove in the interior; the very next day I parked at the grocery store and 5 minutes later came out to see a huge dent and scrape above the front wheel well. Still there and can't be pounded out. Grrrr.

G-d only knows what would happen if I actually got all of the tar and ashes out of there. They might be the glue that holds it together. I'd probably hit a pot hole and have the whole thing fall apart around me while I sit there with just a steering wheel in my hand.

 

[juicy97]

You just made me (and hubs) laugh our ... off way too much this early! Good luck and thank you!

Anytime! Sooo... ummm.... can you ask your hubby, from a man's perspective what the likelyhood of this working are? You can tell him that I'm trying to sweeten the deal for my DH (dear hubby) by asking for a Mustang GT Convertable. Maybe a GT 500???