Smoke smell from car

Barr

Hi All

What is the best way of getting rid of cigarette smell from the inside . The car hasn’t been smoked in for over 2 years but there is still a lingering smell left behind.

The interior looks clean including the roof lining etc .

Would I be better off getting the interior professionally valeted to see if that helps first.


Thanks

MetzgerMeister

It's a tricky one, the problem with cigarette smoke is that it goes absolutely everywhere in a car including in between cracks and into crevices that you can only get at by dismantling the interior of the car.

All that can be done is a full interior wash to include carpets, headlining and seats followed by an ozone smoke treatment. Even at that the smell may still come back after a while.

Barr

Sounds like a tougher job than I thought.

Would valeting places do this ozone smoke treatment . I haven't heard of this treatment . Is it affective . Does it require some kind of specialist .

MetzgerMeister

Not all places do it but a lot more are doing it now because of Covid. It's effective to a certain extent as in it will help but there's no guarantee it will last.

Del2005

Barr wrote: »

Hi All

What is the best way of getting rid of cigarette smell from the inside . The car hasn’t been smoked in for over 2 years but there is still a lingering smell left behind.

The interior looks clean including the roof lining etc .

Would I be better off getting the interior professionally valeted to see if that helps first.


Thanks

Looking clean and being clean are completely different. I got a car a few years ago that a heavy smoker used to own, the headliner was yellow above the drivers seat. I had to scrub the headliner, carpets, front seats, clean all the windows and remove the back seat to get into all the parts to scrub them. After that it didn't smell of smoke.

Barr

Del2005 wrote: »

Looking clean and being clean are completely different. I got a car a few years ago that a heavy smoker used to own, the headliner was yellow above the drivers seat. I had to scrub the headliner, carpets, front seats, clean all the windows and remove the back seat to get into all the parts to scrub them. After that it didn't smell of smoke.

How long ago did you do it , my fear is it will come back eventually - would this remove the smell premantly .

Carpentry

Ozone treatment will kill every smell in the car. There is one in parkwest, https://autoaircon.ie/, can recommend this guy 100%

greasepalm

Change pollen filter also.

walshtipp

New thread here:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058141471

Del2005

Barr wrote: »

How long ago did you do it , my fear is it will come back eventually - would this remove the smell premantly .

Took a few hours to do the headliner, seats, trim and windows. There was still a bit of a smell so removed the back seats and scrubbed everywhere and no more smell. Probably about 4 hours in total.

Barr

If I were to get both done - a full interior valet and Ozone .

Which would be better to do first ?

From what I heard , there could be a smell after the ozone treatment itself .

Would it be better and do the interior valet after the ozone if that is true .

Carpentry

ozone treatment will be at quarter of a price of a decent valet, so I would start with ozone.

MetzgerMeister

Agreed - go with ozone first. A valet won't get into the cracks and crevices that the ozone will. More than likely you'd get a valet and still need ozone. Might not need the valet after getting ozone.

Barr

Op here , just an update

I called this fella to do the Ozone

http://www.ozone-cork.com/

He calls out to where you are which is handy.

Unfortunately the humidty was too high this morning to do it.

He says it has to be <75% for it to work right so I have to wait for the weather to get better.

Barr

I got the ozone treatment done last Sunday . The smell of smoke is totally gone which is great .

However , there is a bleach like smell left in the car now.

Is this something that should be there a week later .

I'm hoping it will fade over time.

Carpentry

Barr wrote: »

I got the ozone treatment done last Sunday . The smell of smoke is totally gone which is great .

However , there is a bleach like smell left in the car now.

Is this something that should be there a week later .

I'm hoping it will fade over time.

Goodman. It will fade away, put some car air freshener in it.

MrMusician18

Remember ozone is effectively gaseous bleach. It can perish plastics and fade fabrics.

Not something to be done too often.

patspost

Just wonder, any update re the bleach smell?
I may need to get Oz treatment at some stage.

My car had a Smokey smell, I changed the pollen filters, so waiting to see if the cigarette smell returns.

Carpentry

patspost wrote: »

Just wonder, any update re the bleach smell?
I may need to get Oz treatment at some stage.

My car had a Smokey smell, I changed the pollen filters, so waiting to see if the cigarette smell returns.

I had this done and it will fade away completely within few days

Carpentry

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Remember ozone is effectively gaseous bleach. It can perish plastics and fade fabrics.

Not something to be done too often.

Where did you get this information from ?

ianobrien

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Remember ozone is effectively gaseous bleach. It can perish plastics and fade fabrics.

Not something to be done too often.

Ozone chemically is O3, bleach is NaOCl so no, Ozone is not the same as sodium hypochlorite

blackbox

ianobrien wrote: »

Ozone chemically is O3, bleach is NaOCl so no, Ozone is not the same as sodium hypochlorite

Different chemicals, but they both work as oxidising agents.

Barr

OP here , there is still a bleachy smell in the car so going to get a valet done . I'll get a deep clean of the interior - see if that helps.