My Car Really Stinks

[p-doze]

FYI- don't get pulled over with a tub of baking soda under your seat.

 

[theCP]

Before I was a smoker, I had left the sunroof on my car open and it rained that night. Ozium worked well to get the musty smell out after I dried the inside.

I haven't tried it to remove smoke smell from a car, as I switched to vaping right after I got my current vehicle. I do still have a car sitting in the garage I used to smoke in daily, I may try it out again and see how well it works for smoke.

 

[NismoNinja]

As a car detailer and as someone who is generally VERY .... about my car, I'll second Ozium. It does a great job of taking smells and odors out of cars. My best recommendation is to start the car, turn the heater on and crank the fan to full. If you can, set the climate control to 'recirculate' instead of bringing in outside air and close all of the windows. Spray a good amount of Ozium into the car near the in-cabin air intake (usually the front passenger footwell) and let it circulate for about 5 min. After 5 min, spray some more, wait another 5 min, and spray some more. Then close the car up, leave it running for another 10 min. This circulates the Ozium well and helps eradicate the smell pretty quickly.

Most 'car scents' (little trees, whatever) are pretty bad in my opinion so this is what I do.... I find a cologne or perfume that I like and I order a 'sample' bottle from ebay (usually $5). I take a cotton handkerchief (or small cotton hand towel) and I spray several spritzes of the cologne onto the handkerchief. I place it under the seat and let it sit. It does a good job of giving a slight scent to the car and it MUCH cheaper than automotive air fresheners.

 

[cherrycakes]

you could try essential oil, really u only need a few drops

 

[BabyFeet]

I used Febreeze and then the strongest incense I could find. Lit it up, closed the doors and one hour later, the car smelled great. May have to retreat it to your preference.

 

[Dave L]

Hmmm.. just did some googling, there's a product called Ozium that's supposed to be like a miracle-cure for cigarette odors.

Many years ago, in a galaxy far away, I ran a small store - they call 'em smoke shops now, we called them something different in the 80s. We sold Ozium. It's basically canned 0³. It does help but doesn't totally eliminate odors. It has that typical ozone odor, which some people find almost as nasty as whatever they're trying to cover up (the smell doesn't linger, however). It's definitely worth a try. But I agree that having your car detailed will probably be on your priority list as you put analogs farther behind you.

 

[michaelsil1]

I spayed a can of Ozium I'll know in the morning how well it worked, I also noticed that one of the main ingredients is Propylene Glycol

 

[bilbobaggins30]

You know those dangly car scents? Yeah, use that and fabreeze, and make sure you vape the .... out of your car (I mean vape in it.) Mine smells like Double Apple after I get out...

 

[Racehorse]

Now that I have started vaping I can really see why people complained about the smell of my car. Is there a good way to remove the smell of stale cigarette smoke from a car?

Professional detailer / inside cleaning & shampooing

OR

Elbow grease + hot water + vinegar, sponge, scrub floors and seats, ceiling, etc. with it (not too wet!) on weekend when you can leave car open and not use it and to air and dry out afterwards.

Also, leave small bowl of vinegar inside and close up windows on last day.

Only thing I have found that worked. Then of course, do the window with windex, and the dash etc. with armourall, shine it all up nice.

Fabreeze? no. Just covering up smellls with a chemical that has a different smell, and not sure it's even safe. BTW, fabreeze is really just downy fabric softener in a spray can, more or less. I do not want to be breathiing it but that's just me.

When scrubbing with vinegar you will actually be wiping away tar and such that went into the carpets and seats, fabreeze aint' gonna do anything at all about that! Cleaning will yield clean. Covering up will yield only covering up.

 

[jfalbanese]

both ebay and amazon have ozium. be careful of merchants who overcharge for shipping.

 

[Daniel13]

i vaped ecto in my car and the smell was wiped out in about a week

 

[bg_rocks]

air out as much possible and as frequent possible anything else just mix the smell and one of those little gel pack from walmart that did it for my car but it took months. My friend paid nearly $300 for best inside detailing nice smell for the first week but that was about it.

 

[Liquinator]

Don't know about American articles but a gas station near my place had a spray called "smoke-ex". Used it once and the smell was gone forever. Smoked in the car for over three years. Maybe try to search it on google. This stuff helped amazingly.

 

[TruckinMan]

I tried different kinds of air fresheners but it still smelled like smoke until I vacuumed and shampooed the carpet and cleaned the seats with leather cleaner. that got rid of it finally

 

[Dansauls]

I did a good old fashioned cleaning on my car this weekend windows, carpet and seats followed by a good dose of fabreeze.
hopefully that will get rid of the smell for good.

 

[michaelsil1]

I've been spraying my car with a lot of Ozium and letting it sit sealed. I can now start to smell the air freshener, I had two fabreeze and Ozium and all I could smell was ash tray.