Smoke smell in car (buying, winter, rust, power)

[JanND]

GO to Walmart, and in the automotive dept. look for Ozium. It is a spray that you spray into your vehicle, and let it sit for a bit, it kills the bacteria in the air. It will kill the smell and the cause of the smell. It is fantastic. And car rental places use it.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ozium-Gly...&wl13=&veh=sem

[don1945]

Originally Posted by Stonepa

The smoke smell will never go away unless they spend some serious money on cleaning, which I doubt they will. Smoke is absorbed into the seats, carpets, headliner, etc. and is extremely difficult to get rid of. If it bothers you now just return it.

Take the car back, it will NEVER go away. My two sons and I spent a weekend, detailing my ex wife's car so she could sell it. She smokes in the car (and everywhere else ) We could not get the interior smell out , even scrubbing the headliner, seats, doors, carpets, etc with a professional cleaner from Auto Geek.

I finally started the car, put the ac on high, and closed the doors. I shot two whole containers of Fabreeze down the intake vent of the ac, and let that sit in there for an hour before I opened the doors. It got rid of a lot of it, and we sold the car.

A month later, the buyer called my son and said "We keep smelling some smoke inside the car and it is getting worse, did the previous owner smoke ? "

Take the car back.

[tickyul]

Rent an ozone generator or have Carmax do so along with the detailing.

[getatag]

Almost 3 years ago we bought a car for our youngest son. It was a great car, low mileage and a great price. We drove the car and realized it was a bargain because it was owned by a smoker for it's 31,000 miles.
The dealership (the dealer's wife was the original owner of the car) did an overnight ozone treatment on the car. The smell disappeared, so we bought it. About a week later the smell returned. The dealership offered another ozone generator treatment. We kindly refused the offer and began our own "treatment" for the cigarette smell.

We washed everything, carpets, windows seats, headliner, dash, steering wheel, visors, air conditioner vents, seatbelt, etc. We even took the back seat out and cleaned under and around it. Changed the cabin filter two or three times. We did the trunk too. We sprinkled baking soda over the seats and carpet after cleaning. We let it sit, then used a shop vac to remove it all. We followed this up a couple of weeks later with another interior wash, vac and clean job. We put a small container of crushed charcoal briquettes under one front seat and a container of fresh ground coffee under the other front seat. After about a month 90% of the odor was gone. We sprayed a bit of Fabreeze into the carpets on hot summer days for the next month or so. After about 6 months the smell was completely gone. We thought maybe we'd just gotten used to it, but Grandma rode in the car the first day when we bought it and wouldn't go near it again because of the smell After about 5 or 6 months Granny was forced to ride in the car and remarked how good it smelled with the cigarette odor gone.

[Hollywood]

Originally Posted by tickyul

Rent an ozone generator or have Carmax do so along with the detailing.

This. I bought an ozone machine on Amazon for a rental property. I had some folks who liked to use curry in everything they cooked. The house smelled god-awful when they moved out. Ozone machine took care of it. It also got the smoke smell out of a car my sister-in-law bought on the cheap. Plug it in, set it in the car with the windows up, and let it run for an hour.

Placing charcoal in the car also helps. I've used that before when I had a leaky gallon of milk in my car in the summer once.

[49erfan916]

I accidently bought a car that had a strong smoke smell in it. When I first bought the car, the car had a strong scent of air freshener to cover up the original smoke smell. My buddy, who is a smoker, didn't detect it. I have a very good nose for things and even I didn't detect it.

It took about 3 days before the air freshener smell dissipated. The smoke smell was strong as ****. It took me 3 seperate treatments from a local detailer to get rid of the smoke. They cleaned everywhere; even the rubber mats in the back trunk. It's sad that people are dishonest.

[carolinacool]

Thanks, all! We've decided to turn the car back in today. I appreciate all the tips, but we figured that since we are in the window where we can return it with minimal fuss plus there are several other cars available (2014 Nissan Murano), we'll just try another. It actually might have worked out for the better because the one DH is having shipped down has fewer miles and a few extra upgrades for just a little more money.

It's funny because we have almost always bought used cars and this is the first time we've run into a smoke issue. But I will definitely keep these tips in mind. A couple of summers ago, I left a pack of ground beef in my cargo area. Ick. Luckily, the smell didn't stick around for too long, but the idea of charcoal or coffee back there would have cleared it up quicker.

[gwarnecke]

Good decision .

I can't stand the smell of smoke. I used to own a Mazda Miata that I purchased used. It was clearly owned by a smoker (several cigarette burns on the seats), but remarkably it had zero cigarette odor. Even my wife, who complained about every other aspect of the car, didn't notice any smell. They must've only smoked with the top down.

[TexasRedneck]

Ozone WILL kill the smoke if properly done. It's often used in homes where they've had a fire. Generally takes about 12-24 hours to get the job done properly.

[jalam321]

I would also recommend ozone machine...works wonders. good luck