Odorous Interior

[alwill]

I recently purchased a used vehicle. Although I didn't notice it too much a first, after having it around for few days, I began to notice a distict odor within the vehicle - a kind of sickening sweet smell that I am thinking may be something that the previous owner applied to cover up something that was there before - perhaps smoke odor or whatever. I asked the previous owner if he was a smoker and he said no, but who knows. Anyway, is there anything that anyone can recommend to take this smell out of the upolstery and/or carpet in a car. I have done some cursory shampooing of the upolstery (spot cleaning mostly - not every surface), washed down the dash and all the other hard surfaces and left the windows and doors open for several days to air things out but none of this has seemed to help much. I've also tried squirting some Fabrize air freshener in there. The odor persists. Is there anything out there that will take care of this problem short of replacing all the upolstery? Thanks in advance for any helpful advice.

[Murr1525]

Re: Odorous Interior

If it is all in the foam and padding, you might have to replace even more...

Autodetailingsolutions.com sells some kind of odor eleiminator thing.

[ueb0258]

Re: Odorous Interior

I have personally used the Dakota odor bomb that is sold on the website listed above and have had great results with it. Had a friend that smoked that i cleaned the smell in his car. Also has worked for pet odor that a friend that transported dogs in her car a lot.

[bowlboy]

Re: Odorous Interior

Have you check to see if the heater core is leaking? That would produce a sweet smell and wet carpet under the dash.

[rascal]

Re: Odorous Interior

If the odor is in the interior, a.k.a carpet and seats, I would suggest cleaning it with All Purpose Cleaner Plus diluted 10:1 and work it in with an interior brush. Use a ShopVac over the area to make sure you remove most the "wet" out of the carpet afterwords. The outside air will have to finish drying it out b/c you won't get all the dampness out with just a ShopVac. After doing that, get some #23 Odor Eliminator and spray the seats and carpet. You let #23 dry into the interior, you don't need to vacuum again. Sometimes you might have to use #23 once or twice after a few days to help it along, but you should notice a great difference in the car. My g/f has spoiled baby milk and other nasty things in her car. It only took two blasts of #23 to get rid of the smell after I did the above cleaning with my ShopVac and APC+.

If the offending odor has seeped into the padding, you will need to remove the carpet completely to try and clean it from there. I hope the heater core isn't leaking, that is a real messy situation on carpets. Good luck with it and keep us posted.