Cigarette smell

Mike Honcho

Mike Honcho

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I went with #1 son yesterday to look at cars for sale. The one he is most interested in has a faint odor of cigarette smell in it. I mentioned it to the used car manager and he acknowledged they were aware of it and would "ionize" the car during the detailing process if we bought it. How realistically can I except the smell, however slight, to go away.
 
It will never go away, seriously, no matter what you do, nicotine is in every crack and crevice of that vehicle and the small will always come back. It's in the seats, carpet, headliner etc.

I just had a sales meeting yesterday and one of our chemical suppliers was there and I asked him this very question.
 
If it was me, I'd pick up some Stripper Scent by Chemical Guys.

Cigarettes and strippers always go together well. One seems to compliment the other somehow.


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swanicyouth said:
If it was me, I'd pick up some Stripper Scent by Chemical Guys.

Cigarettes and strippers always go together well. One seems to compliment the other somehow.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I can smell it right now, Mons Venus!!!
 
custmsprty said:
It will never go away, seriously, no matter what you do, nicotine is in every crack and crevice of that vehicle and the small will always come back. It's in the seats, carpet, headliner etc.

I just had a sales meeting yesterday and one of our chemical suppliers was there and I asked him this very question.
Click to expand...

I tend to disagree.. I've used So2Pure in two vehicles, one with cat urine and the other was the same situation as Mike's. They purchased an old Ford Ranger form a heavy smoker.
So2Pure took care of both situations. I've recently checked in on the Ranger, (it has been more than 7 or 8 months) and still no smell.

But here is the disclaimer, on both vehicles, we did full interior detail jobs, hot water carpet extraction, tornador, wipe-downs, glass cleaning, on top of using So2Pure.

So you may be right, I have not tried a single product alone... Both instances included full interior details.
 
custmsprty said:
It will never go away, seriously, no matter what you do, nicotine is in every crack and crevice of that vehicle and the small will always come back. It's in the seats, carpet, headliner etc.

I just had a sales meeting yesterday and one of our chemical suppliers was there and I asked him this very question.
Click to expand...

I agree. It's like stink on a monkey - you can give it a bath but the stink always comes back. There are thousands of cars for sale, I'd move on if the cig smell bothers you.
 
paul_g said:
I tend to disagree.. I've used So2Pure in two vehicles, one with cat urine and the other was the same situation as Mike's. They purchased an old Ford Ranger form a heavy smoker.
So2Pure took care of both situations. I've recently checked in on the Ranger, (it has been more than 7 or 8 months) and still no smell.

But here is the disclaimer, on both vehicles, we did full interior detail jobs, hot water carpet extraction, tornador, wipe-downs, glass cleaning, on top of using So2Pure.

So you may be right, I have not tried a single product alone... Both instances included full interior details.
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I don't think any scent removing product will get good results without eliminating the source of the smell. Cigarettes definitely deposit a film and I've had good results after a full interior detail and using the odor eliminating bombs too. But a full cleaning is definitely a must.

I once got to a customer's house that wanted an interior detail on a Mercedes G-Class SUV, and failed to mention they had spilled a frappaccino on the floor, two weeks prior, and this was in Hawaii (nice and hot). It reaked of rotten milk, and the worst part was it spilled under the seat and was all over the seat track and in all of the electronics and wire bundles. I had to have my face down there to see what I was doing under the seat. Took forever using a tooth brush to clean every wire bundle and harness, a #### ton of towels and pulling out chunks of rotten frap. I feel like I can still smell it right now as I type this haha. Definitely the worst interior detail I've ever had to do.
 
Mike Honcho said:
I went with #1 son yesterday to look at cars for sale. The one he is most interested in has a faint odor of cigarette smell in it. I mentioned it to the used car manager and he acknowledged they were aware of it and would "ionize" the car during the detailing process if we bought it. How realistically can I except the smell, however slight, to go away.
Click to expand...

This is going to be tough to fully dissipate, but depending on the strength, I would say it's possible. I've managed to get rid of the smell of cigarettes in one car I've worked on, but it was a very, VERY lengthy process that took days to fully purge.

Here is what I did:

1. Pull everything out of the car... I mean, undoing seats from the tracks, cushions, spare tire from trunk area, trunk floor deck, and if it's really bad you may want to remove the carpet all together and headliner. You need to pull the soft surfaces out of the car to really work on them.

2. With everything out, scrub all the surfaces like crazy and don't miss any of the cracks or crevices. Open the center console, glove box, hidden pockets in the seats or door... go crazy looking for any hidden areas. On the carpet and seats (if cloth) it's time to scrub those and do a hot water extraction as well. Use a shampoo, APC dilution, or any other safe cleaner to get the surfaces as clean as possible. You want to penetrate as deeply as possible to get as much gunk out as you can. If it's an option, leave the seats, floor mats, and carpet outside in the sun to fully dry.

3. If possible clean out the air vents but putting a dust/scrub attachment on the end of a vacuum and reaching in.

4. Change the in cabin air filter, and before installing the new one, spray with ozium (This is what I have used and have had good results). With the new filter installed, spray the fresh air intake on the car with ozium and let it suck in fresh air for 10-15 minutes to help get into all the vents in the system.

Once I did all those steps and the soft surfaces were cleaned thoroughly I had to go back to spray the ozium 2 more times in the vents with all the insides of the cars put back in.

That seemed to do the trick! Hopefully this helps...
 
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