Cigarette Smoke

[hshelton1245]

I just bought a 2005 'vette with pristine interior except ....it has been smoked in..

Any suggestions to get that "new car smell" back? the car had only 14,500 miles on it..

Help

Bill

[BrianPow84]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

I would try some meguiars odor remover. Or possibly a odor bomb

[Daniel Kinder]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

Hey hshelton

Congratulations on the vette, what color?

Hate that it has that nasty cigarette smell!

Like has been said before about cigarette smell it's hard to get rid of it if able at all, But I have had some good luck at getting rid of some pretty bad orders.

One help was that I've got a breeze AT ecoquest air purifier that also has a sanitizer mode thats pretty aggressive to say the least. But what I did was take everything out except the dash and headliner (cleaned inside the car) cleaned and scrubed everything and then but the purifier in the car and set on the sanitizer and left over night, while I got started on all other parts.

Using the LGM 1425 with pro heat on the cloth panels and ofcourse carpet. Next used #40 2-3 times on most panels while scrubing each application.

Hopefully you have a garage to put you new pride ride in and can try some or all of these or what ever else, others will have more comments to help you! If you do have a garage to keep in I would keep the windows down about 1/2'' t an 1'' to also help with airflow.

Hope you can get some or all of the smell out. Keep working with it and you'll get it.

[tcope1]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

Cover the carpet in backing soda and leave it locked up for a day or two. Vacuum it all out. Clean all the plastic with some APC at 7:1 or similar cleaner.

[roushstage2]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

A bottle of Meguiar's Odor Eliminator applied to all cloth surfaces and through the HVAC vents frequently will do wonders as well.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

+1. I have had very good success with Meguiars odor eliminator. Give it a try.

[BobbyG]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

That's a tough one for sure but the car isn't that old so it shouldn't be all that difficult..

Cigarette smell is very difficult to remove because it gets everywhere. That said, a through cleaning of all exposed surfaces will get 90% of it. Cloth absorbs it like crazy and you'll even find it'll settle on vinyl. A good surface cleaner will dissolve it and will show up as a brownish residue on the cloth.

Go over each exposed area twice.
Shampoo the carpets
Use Meguiar's Odor Eliminator M2301 on all fabric materials even the headliner

Time and your own odors will take care of the rest.

[Spike]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

Do you have leather seats? Cleaning and conditioning the leather seats will give you that fresh, leather smell in the car, and hopefully get the cig smell out from your seats. Also I ditto using Megs odor eliminator. That stuff works wonders! Airing out the car will help as well.

[Greg W]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

I was gonna post a similiar question, but it fits here.
What about the headliner? Is it sae to use a little green machine on it or would that compromise the glue holding the fabric to the backing panel?
I ask becouse Im a smoker (yeah yeah, I know) and so is the wife and no matter how well you clean everything else, the headliner gets dosed worse than anything else and gets discolored. I really dont want to wipe out my headliner while cleaning it. Any ideas?

[fromthecoast]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

In the past, I have cleaned the entire interior, including headliner, shampooed the carpets, and then used some odor treatment while the car was closed and running with the air on full blast recirculate. A few treatments of that should pretty much do the trick. Also, once you have done that, if you have access to a garage, it might not be a bad idea to part it in there with the windows down and let it air out. I've never done the latter, but I've never needed to after doing what I mentioned.

[Daniel Kinder]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

I was gonna post a similiar question, but it fits here.
What about the headliner? Is it sae to use a little green machine on it or would that compromise the glue holding the fabric to the backing panel?
I ask becouse Im a smoker (yeah yeah, I know) and so is the wife and no matter how well you clean everything else, the headliner gets dosed worse than anything else and gets discolored. I really dont want to wipe out my headliner while cleaning it. Any ideas?

Yeah the tuff one.

I use a couple micro-fibers and spray one with a very mild cleaner(don't over saturate) or ? and gently rub the liner with back and forth motion and use the other micro-fiber dry for going back over to get any remaining residue-loose dirt thats on the surface.

Don't spray directly on the liner itself, and don't use any harsh cleaners!

Hope thats helped

[StadiumDetail]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

In the past, I have cleaned the entire interior, including headliner, shampooed the carpets, and then used some odor treatment while the car was closed and running with the air on full blast recirculate. A few treatments of that should pretty much do the trick. Also, once you have done that, if you have access to a garage, it might not be a bad idea to part it in there with the windows down and let it air out. I've never done the latter, but I've never needed to after doing what I mentioned.

x2

I've done many cars that had bad cig smoke in them and the above is the tried and true method of getting it out. Cleaning everything, including extraction of all fabric, is an absolute must before any type of odor elimination should be attempted. Here are some of my steps, and I can generally get a car completely smoke free:
1) All fabric extracted including headliner. Smoke rises so the headliner is a must
2) Use a strong APC mix, 6:1 should do it, and completely detail all surfaces. The APC will degrease all the tar and nicotine residue that is still on the interior of the car (generally you will see brown drips or at least brown on your cleaning rag) and this too causes the odor you have. The better you do this step the better chance you have of getting 100% removal.
3) If the air vents piviot, not just the flaps moving but the whole vent moves, it can be removed from the car by simply popping it out. Remove them and spray some APC in the duct work and clean as far as you can.
4) Clean the windows with some isoprophyl alcohol to remove the tar and nicotine.
5) Replace seats and use an odor fogger or elimintor or ozone machine. Close the doors, put a trickle charger on the battery and run recirculate for at least 4hrs.
6) Open doors and air out.

The above will eliminate all odors and all sources of the odor. If it doesn't just use the car for a week or so, letting it air out and move odors out of the air vents and such, then repeat the detail to get the last bit of smell out.

[Greg W]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

Good stuff in this thread. I leave my windows cracked so the car does air out and I keep it wiped down through out the winter months when you cant really get outside and detail it. Now my wife, well, her habits just kill me with how she keeps her car. Good thing she's a chef and can make a mean sammich .
Her car is going to take alot of time come spring. Between the kitchen grease on the carpet and the smoke, its gonna be a whole weekend project Im sure.
Thanks for the replies on the headliner guys

[CTS-V]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

My brother-in-law in DFW uses a Mequiars product called
1 STEP LEATHER CARE....he swears by this product when it
comes to getting that leather smell back, like it came off the
showroom floor. I spoke to a rep. on the phone, his name was
John, and he informed me that it should be on the shelves,
but only at WALMART... for it is being sold their exclusively..
I called almost all the stores in Md. and none of them have
it in stock... I would surely like to get the 1 step leather care
for i have a Benz i bought used, that'' smells like cigarettes.''
as Forest Gump said Anyway, there is a link below i saw
that shows this product...Has anyone tried this B/4 and can
anyone help me in aquiring a bottle of it?? seeyaGreg

carreview.com/mfr/meguiars/upholstery-cleaner/PRD_59443_2908crx.aspx

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Cigarette Smoke

The 1 Step Leather Care product sold exclusively through WalMart was a limited release product and has not been available for quite some time now. Your best bet today would be our new Gold Class Rich Leather Gel. WalMart did not pick this product up for 2010 but it was picked up by Target, Advance, AutoZone, Pep Boys and O'Reilly/CSK.