The previous owner of my Fit was a smoker. help me!
 

I know I am not the only anal member here. I can't stand this nasty smoke smell. What can you guys recommend to me to make this thing smell pleasant again. I am desperate!

I cleaned out a car with strong dead mouse smell by removing all the seats and using carpet cleaner on the entire carpet, and upholstery cleaner on the entire surfaces of the seats while they were on sawhorses. Not only did I use the cleaners according to the directions on the cans (dry), I used lots of water and a scrub brush and soaked 'em, then dabbed up as much moisture as I could with towels, then let them dry thoroughly in the sun and breeze before re-install. Yes, it was quite a bit more work than a normal cleaning, but all stains and traces of nastiness were gone after that and it smelled really nice- pretty much like new.

I threw a snake in the trunk of my car once. It crawled out of the trunk and died somewhere inside the car. I removed the spare, rear seats, etc. to no avail. After a week, I found it by following the flies to the driver side kick panel in front of the door. After I removed it, the car stunk like a dead snake for a full year.

My former boss bought a pickup truck cheap, because the previous owner died in it, and it had an aroma. I never rode in it.

Smoke is going to be tough. You can Febreze the crap out of it if you want, but I've had my car for about a year and a half, and every time it's warm out I can still smell the smoke from the previous owner. It airs out after a few days and I don't really notice after a while.

I'd steam clean all the hard surfaces and shampoo all the soft surfaces. Still it's tough to remove the smoke smell from the vents. I'd even go so far as to remove all the carpet and seating, shampoo outdoors and rinse with a garden hose. The foams in the seats are pretty dense and won't absorb too much water. It would dry pretty quickly on a warm day.

Use coffee grounds in linnen bags.

How about muslim bags?

If you can, rent or buy an ozone generator/air ionizer, one designed for in your house would work quickest, then leave it in your car whenever you can, over night and so on, for a week or so, they are supposed to work by causing the air to become less stable so the oxygen can bond with the oder causing compounds easier, braking them down, I know people who have done this to get rid of cat pee smell in the house and it worked really well.

2nded. A local car dealership I've bought a couple cars from does to every car, works perfectly every time.

I have used an ozonater before in an apartment and it did make a huge difference. ReI will make that my next step if my vinegar and baking soda scrub down follwed by a bath in Febreeze fails. The preliminary results smell promising.

Hotels also use the ozone generators with great success.

Warning on using one in a car. The concentrations inside of it will be at toxic levels.
Unplug it, hold your breath, open the doors and walk away.

The smoke has deposited airborne residue on all the surfaces of the interior.

The good news is that compared to some other odors, this is relatively easy to remove. Depending on the nature of the surface, if it is hard such as plastic, glass or metal you can use a spray cleaner such as Fantastic, Lysol or any other spray cleaner. If it is fabric, then a fabric cleaner would be best.

After cleaning and the surface is totally dry, put your nose to it to see if the odor remains. If it does, try again with a different cleaner.

And don't forget the ash tray. Remove it and give it a good soak and scrubbing. ;)

Start smoking.
Then you won't care.
Just kiddin', I wouldn't encourage anyone to do that.

I have great luck with Simple Green and a pressure washer.

I bought a Suburban a while back, and the interior was FILTHY. I gutted the inside, stretched the carpet over saw horses, and presprayed everything in simple green. All door panels, interior plastics, seats, etc. I pressure washed everthing, and while it dried I got to everything I could get to inside including floor, dashboard, etc.

Once it dried, I reassembled. Not only does the interior look like it did in 1994, but the faint smell of simple green is in the air.

My car got flooded and was full of mud and decaying foliage and rotting vermin.

The best way to get rid of the stench was when I fully stripped the interior..carpet,seats everything! just like when you are stripping of a car when you are going to have it repainted/restored.

The carpet i washed with a mixture of bleach and water then rinse with water with lime juice. I then scrubbed the ceiling and seats with the same and left them to dry in the hot prairie sun for almost 4 days and put them back in when they are bone dry.

Just start with the simple things first clean all the hard surfaces one or two times if you are still getting brown residue on your rag let it dry and go at it again.

If it took more than 2 times to get the dash and windows clean I would start on the soft surfaces by using a carpet cleaner with upholstery attachment. If you can remove any of the seats easily I would do that to make it easier. Do the first wash with warm water this will remove the looser surface dirt then when finished start over using soap.

I'm not sure what I would do about the head liner other than using fabreze.

Replace the cabin air filter and clean the passages under it, also clean the vents and as far down the vent as you can. I hope that the last owner did not smoke with the air recirculating in the car. If they did you might want to check into how to clean the condenser core. I would try the other steps before trying to clean the air system any further than you can easily get with a rag.

Also on hot days leave the windows popped so it can air out.

Just a small technical point, the evaporator core is inside the hvac module and is used to evaporate the refrigerant, pulling the heat out of the air before it enters the cabin, the condenser converts the hot and evaporated refrigerant gas into a liquid and is typically mounted either just in front of, or just behind the radiator behind the grille opening.

HVAC techs use a concentrated solution to clean coils. The smoke actually condenses on coils to form a brown layer. I believe it was called Acti-Klean.

if you think that there is residual smell in the A/C system, google "stop the stank" and read the accord forum post that comes up.

For the lazy, here's the product.
Interdynamics OE1 - Evaporator Odor Eliminator | O'Reilly Auto Parts

I've washed seats before, but I'm not sure if I'd want to wash the Fit seats with a hose since they have air bags in them.

After all the cleaning a couple open boxes of baking soda secured where they can't turn over and make a mess might help absorb part of the left over odor.

Thanks so much to all of you guys that provided me with ideas for how to eliminate this smell. I found that spraying my whole interior down with a strong mix of vinegar and water followed by a sprinkling of baking soda on all the upholstery followed yet again by another spraying of vinegar has almost eliminated the smell. After scrubbing in that solution of vinegar and baking soda into the seats and carpet and headboard lining with a soft bristle brush I then let it sit for a few hours. I then vacuumed it all up with a good ShopVac and hosed it all down with Febreeze several times. I also replaced the cabin air filter. I believe there is still the faintest smell still left, but it is pretty well over powered by the febreeze. :thumbup:


http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/n...522_172647.jpg
Front seats in vinegar/baking soda solution

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/n...522_172655.jpg
Rear seats

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/n...522_194105.jpg
All done and air drying in garage with 2 fans!

It doesn't smell like a big pickle?

why not just uses this as an excuse to do a complete interior removal, better fuel efficiency

Man, I totally thought about that! Alas, though I have a baby boy and the wifey wants me to keep the rear seats in in case of me having to transport him somewhere.

Bill,
It doesn't smell particularly like a giant pickle because the interior has since dried and the smell of Febreeze took the place of all scents for the most part!

Good news. Like I said, I really am interested in hearing how this car does for you, since I can easily imagine owning one in the future.

I will be posting multiple fuel logs for everyone to follow in the garage section under "Blue" for my Fit. So far so good, I am at 211 miles on this 3rd tank of gas and I am right at the half tank mark :thumbup:

I will eventually post other observations about the car as well such as the effects of some aero mods that are in the planning stages!