Just bought a winter beater. It has cloth interior, which smells pretty bad.
hard to describe what it's like. this is a 20 year old chevy, ex detective's car.
Other than just airing it out, anyone have any tips or tricks that work?
I've been spraying it down with frebreeze. The interior is very clean, except for a soda spill on the back carpet, which i have already cleaned out.

I was thinking of taking it to a detail shop, and have them steam clean/shampoo it. any thoughts?

I bought a smokers car years ago, it stunk bad. It even stunk after it was a sand blasted steel shell on a rotisserie. I swear, it only went away after I painted the whole car top and bottom.

They can use a electric thing to clear lot's of the smell out I bet. Like you said take it to pro detail shop, they have the best chance of getting it cleaned up enough to drive it without gaging you all the time. Might even get your wife to ride along.

There are odor removers you can at auto supply places. You pop the lid and toss the thing under a seat and leave it there till you're happy. About $10.. It worked on the skunk odor our dog dragged into my wife's brand new car !!!

Also, ZorbX works really well.

Baking soda. Arm and hammer has a scented on that is for odor elimination, regular stuff works just the same but the scrnted stuff leaves a clean smell. Pour it on all of the cloth, seats carpet door panels whatever, scrub it in with a brush. Let it sit, the longer the better. Vacuum it out and shampoo the carpet, a home steam cleaner works fine. If the smell it really bad give it the baking sode treatment a few times. It will get herder to get the baking soda out the more times you do it and the more you grind it in, but it works. If it smells like a bacteria driven smell I have cleaned with lysol spray before and during steam cleaning. Top with a black ice Little Trees car freshener. You can add a thing like Stanton mentioned too, and fabreeze. A small smell may linger but if its faint enough it will go away as you inhabit it.

Have you tried shampooing the seats, carpet, cleaning all the plastics down? Seems I end up doing that on every used car I buy.

i cleaned out a smoke damaged truck by stripping the whole interior out---cleaning then drying in the sun---3 cycles----you guys ever notice how nice bed sheets smelled when dried in the sun---the plastic and metal parts were just scrubbed in place....

If its mildew the only way to remove the smell is get rid ot the mildewI have successfully done this by pulling interior out and wiping down floor with bleach solution scrubbing carpets and let dry out doors and then leave a pan of charcoal in pans in interior. Go with savoy64 suggestion

Yes this. I use my old Bissell big green with hot tap water mixed with laundry det to clean EVERYTHING that is cloth. A seat may LOOK clean but wait till you see what the cleaner sucks out. Even when the cleaner is pulling nice clean solution out of the upholstery- wait 10 min and clean again. The deep junk wicks toward the surface and youll be sucking up brown dirty solution allllll over again. Ive spent over 3 hours on a compact car doing it all. Nice and clean afterward. When done place a heater in there with windows cracked to vent and all will be good.

I use purple power to clean every used car I buy. Actually have a 93 sundance that I'm currently fixing up that was owed by heavy smokers. One good cleaning and no more smell. I spray everything down and wipe down with a wet rag and I rinse the rag out very often.

Those ozone machines work pretty good. They cost a few hundred.

This is what I used
This is in Canada and should be available in the USA.
Commercial product...Swish Aromax 35 Bio-Enzamatic Odor Digester.
I think about $40 for a gallon jug that you dilute and will do many cars.
Sprayed twice and now the wife will even ride in the car with me.

Just saw this on of the morning car shows

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/SBT1/19970.oap

I feel your pain. Our dog barfed in the back or our Subaru after eating some rotting veggies in our garden.

Several months, lots of cleaning and even removal of the carpet that was barfed upon, and it still smells.

My wife had a kid barf up ice cream on a hot day in her back seat. I had a couple of friends that owned a ServiceMaster cleaning service.

She drove by there and they sprayed some cleaner on it and did hot water extraction on the upholstery. Car never stank and all the seats looked way better than before. They felt sorry for her so they didn't even charge us!

Since it's an ex detective's car; I check the trunk to make sure there isn't a dead black man in there.

Cute, moron.

Thanks for all the tips fellas. This weekend it will be in the '60's so i'm going to air it out as long as i can, as well as going over the plastic and vinyl pieces with some good cleaner and mold remover,
if that doesn't do it, i'll take it to the local detail shop and se what they recommend.

The carpet is clean, and there's nothing under the front seat. I'm going to take the bottom of the rear seat out, maybe something is under there.

Bad cop, bad cop, no donuts for you!

Spaceman,
Simple Green is your friend- use it with a scrub brush; wipe things down. Then shampoo the carpet. When you're done, put a open container of coffee grounds on the floor, roll up windows- store this way. coffee acts the same as activated charcoal (another idea). cheers

X2!