Damn my interior stinks

[TrickFlow]

no, really, it does. I was putting my weatherstripping back in last night, and realized that the painter must have left the car outside with the windows down for a while, and now i have a mildew smell comin from the inside. what is a good cleaner that will get rid of the smell. im not looking just to mask the smell, but if i can get away with not taking the carpet and seats back out, then ill be

 

[dvs bullet]

mine had a leaky sunroof for a long time before I got it so mine, smells like a sweaty gym sock the only thing that I found that pushes back the smell is power out from turtle wax It's afoam that you spay in and vacuum out. It works for me for a while but I need a new carpet badly, for you it might solve the prob. hope it helps

 

[srothfuss]

A trick that I use in tents / campers is to Cut an onion in half and stick it in a bowl of water (half submerged). The onion will absorb the smell in about 1 day.

 

[mustangjoe87]

a cup of baking soda will help too. works really good if you are gonna put a cover on it for a while. absorbs the moisture

 

[Ourobos]

A trick that I use in tents / campers is to Cut an onion in half and stick it in a bowl of water (half submerged). The onion will absorb the smell in about 1 day.

I think I'd rather smell the dirty gym sock..

Mine has a smell of clabbored milk under the driver's seat.. I think I'll try the turtle wax stuff.. It's no problem to pull the seats, eight bolts, but I'd rather not take the carpet out either. If I did that, I'd just take it to a laundromat and wash it..

Brandon

 

[wazazzle]

what ever you do, do not wet vac and then put that carpet powder down. there will still be moisture in the carpet and the powder will become like candy. all sticky and ****. it took me 4 months and vac every weekend to finally get all the white pwdr stuff out. PAIN.. just wet vac or use industrial carpet foam cleaner and scrub like a momo with brush. wear mask through **** will give you a bad headache w/in a minute.

 

[Curse]

My old car belonged to a smoker, the way the car smelled you would swear someone had lit a fresh cig. I tried everything and nothing worked, until I took it to get a steam clean. Took the smell out and left my carpet & seats like new, best $40 I ever spent.

 

[srothfuss]

The bowl of water will absorb the onion smell... IT won't make the car stink. Or at least it doesn't make my camper stink.

Baking soda will work also...

 

[Ranchero5.0]

Half cup of tide laundry detergent in a gallon of water with a Bissel upolstophy cleaner for everything and a cheap 1" paint brush and straight tide on the fabric stains. For the vinyl and plastic straight permatex hand cleaner (white gojo works too) and a clean white T shirt. Rub it on and let it sit for a half hour, then wipe it off. Lifts the dirt out of the crevices in the vinyl material. Takes about four hours to do a good job, but on my car actually smells new inside and the cleaners don't damage the materials.

Jamie

 

[hllon4whls]

There is a water absorber that walmart, home depot, etc sell. It will pull all of the moisture out of the interior and actually fill the container with the water. That combined with a good vacuum should do the trick.

Worked on my parents cars that got flooded (twice).

 

[Retro10]

Also Mequiars had a smell remover product that I tried, it did take the mildew smell out a bit, have to redo it.

heres the link to it:

http://www.meguiars.com/estore/product_detailpage.cfm?product=Car-Odor-Eliminator&sku=G-23

 

[Kerpal]

Simple green carpet cleaner is good, as is Woolite laundry detergent and warm water.

You can also try those orange gel canisters meant for absorbing odors they sell at Home Depot (probably Wal Mart, etc .as well)... they 'soak' up odor and replace it with a strong orange scent somehow. Febreeze works pretty well too.

 

[BlackFox5.0]

Baking soda also aborbs odor....

 

[Blakthorn]

how about that ionic breeze for the car

 

[TrickFlow]

Cool, thanks for all the info, i appreciate it! imma start on this tonight and see what happens, ill let ya know! actually, ill try all of this stuff and let ya know what works best for me.

 

[crazypete]

That ionic breeze stuff is an oxidizer. Charged ions age things. DONT USE THOSE THINGS!! They should not be legal for indoor use. It's like a ground level ozone generator! Read up on ground level ozone and be scared!

Best, most effective way to get rid of the smell of mildew is the BAKE your interior. Put 2 1500 watt heaters inside your car on full and close the door with sunroof or 1 window sligtly cracked. Should dry the hell out of the interior and slay all the mildew.

Then get the 10 pack of the yellow christmas tree air fresheners and throw 5 under each seat. Your eyes will water but the smell will be gone. Let it sit in the sun like that a few days with the windows up and the cabin will smell lemony instead for a loooooong time.

 

[Fishhawk]

Admit it, you farted with the windows closed and left it sit overnight.

 

[TrickFlow]

Admit it, you farted with the windows closed and left it sit overnight.

i wish thats all it was... then again, i had the "Blazin" sauce last night at BW3's, so i might have melted my console if i got in there and ripped one last night

 

[live2ride204]

My car sat for a year in a very wet climate, i cleaned about 5 or 6 times during the winter but it still had the mildew smell. I ran across some car fabreeze and it took the smell right out.