Tips for Odor removal inside car ??

[wintermute]

+ 2 on ozone treatment.

I tried every spray, cleaner, and air freshener on the market to get the cigarette smell out of the VX I acquired, and nothing worked until the ozone treatment.

It has a weird scent of its own after the treatment, but it fades over time and the cigarette smell never returned.

Have your local serv pro, or other cleaning professional, put an ozone generator in the cab for a few hrs...

http://www.servpro.com/odor_id

[tom4bren]

Yah, ozone will do the trick.

I had a sick dog go explosive from both ends in my car once. It was BAAAAADDD!!!!

Believe it or not, my insurance paid for a professional detailing. I had already shampoo'd the seats & carpet 3 times & still couldn't drive it. I had to wear a military gasmask to drive it to the detail shop (people look at you funny when you do that). The owner of the detail shop literally tossed his cookies out the window just driving it from the parking lot & into the shop.

He ran his ozone generator in it for 3 days (not recommended but it worked). I put another 100K miles on that car after that.

[mdwyer]

+ 2 on ozone treatment.

I'll go ahead and make that a +3 (at least!). I'm a firm believer in them! The dealer ran an ozone generator for just a few minutes in my VX when I bought it. It completely removed the cigarette smell. I used one in my house to get rid of cat smell. I recommended one to my neighbor after three rooms of his house were sprayed by a skunk.

I rented one for about $20 from a rental store. You can buy one for about $140. (Denver VXers, feel free to borrow mine, if I ever get it back from the last person I lent it to...)

When you run it, it generates ozone that in low quantities smells like a xerox machine or like static electricity. In high doses it starts smelling like bleach, and will give you an instant sore throat. So, you just run it for 15 minutes or so with the fan and AC on. Then, let it air out a bit. After that, things will smell oddly neutral for quite some time!

Don't run it too much, though. It oxidizes everything it touches, which can include plastics and rubber. This might be a Bad Thing. Also, the gas is very reactive, so it goes away pretty quickly and doesn't absorb deeply into things. If the odor is soaked into your carpets and seats, you might be out of luck.

[VX KAT]

x100! Super thank you to all who recommended this!
Got the machine yesterday, paid $129/Free Shipping. Covers 3,500 sq feet, commercial model. Brand new.
Did 1 hr on, 1 hr left alone with closed windows - odor 90% gone, so much better.

Did another hour today, same time, and it's gone baby! Has a faint bleachy smell for just a little while, and then a neutral type odor. I decide tomorrow if it needs any more treatment. Did the VX for an hour today, still sitting in garage closed up. It was kind of starting to smell like "old car" smell, thought it could use a blast of this stuff. Next I'm going to try a few rooms inside - like kitty box area.

I got a face-full of it the first time I turned it on, had it on floor mat and leaned over to turn timer dial - WHAM! that stuff instantly starts blowing air that smells farily strongly of this bleachy type smell.
Note to self, next time - hold breath, turn dial, turn away ASAP and slam door and run.