Tahoe Shark

I'm looking at a 928 that has been owned by a smoker. Does anyone know if ALL of the smoke smell be removed and how. Will a deionizer do it. It will stop me from buying the car if it has any trace left.

Thanks in Advance

AO

Yes, but it requires that you rip out the entire intrior and do a full replacement. I don't think there is any other way. Sorry.

Tahoe Shark

Jim bailey - 928 International

In my experience if you seriously scrub every inch of the interior, carpet included ,seats OUT OF THE car 99% will go away. Park it on a hot day windows closed come back in a few hours and there will be some residual smell for a while...... I remember washing the headliners on smokers cars and watching the bucket of soapy water turn brown........ You might consider putting in all new carpet that does as much for a car as it does for a house !!

mspiegle

what if you spray some fabreeze on your carpet? I've never used it, but i hear alot of good things on its ability to make fabrics smell better.

Jim bailey - 928 International

I love the Fabreeze commercials "makes your house smell clean" DOES NOT make it clean just makes it smell clean It just coats the fabric and glues the smell to the fabric, too funny.

DR

Tim,
>Does anyone know if ALL of the smoke smell be removed and how

Easy! Smoke 1 cigar in there and you will never smell the cigarette smoke again :-)

Or, try using "Lifter 1" Carpet Stain remover on the carpets, then as Jim said scrub the rest of the interior. There are also some neat foam type products that you can spray up thru the evaporator drain hole that will effectively clean the HVAC system. That is where most of the smoke residue smell will continue to come from even after the interior is cleaned.

Tahoe Shark

I'm feeling better now. The smell isn't really heavy, more like a pipe with a sweet kind of smell. Definately smoke but kind of faint. Maybe there is hope.

Jim bailey - 928 International

OK Tim what are you looking at now ? road warrior number two.

docmirror

You're right Jim,
FeBreeze: DON'T USE IT! FeBreeze contains formaldehyde(HCHO) in suspension as a gas. It can be used in limited ways in a house, but in an enclosed car, I wouldn't recommend it.

Formaldehyde as an "air freshener" works in a strange way. It does NOT remove, or destroy an odor. The active ingredients in FeBreeze to remove odors is aquious alcohol. The Formaldehyde works on the scent receptors in your sinus' to make your ability to smell anything less sensitive. sort of like a 'nose-plug' that inhibits smell. It doesn't change the amount of type of odor produced on a surface at all. The other additives are a strong perfume, with anything from orange, rose, musk, or any other type of scent they can think of.

http://www.prohousedr.com/formfact.htm

Using this, or almost any other type of 'freshener' in a car is very short term. To clean an odor, remove the interior(all of it) Clean with a mixture of warm water and alcohol. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. For someone who is sensitive to smoke odors, you're pretty much stuck with it in a car. I replaced ALL carpet in my car, it was a non-smoker car, and changing the carpet still helped a lot.

Guess what? The carpet in many cars is glued to the backing with a glue that contains Formaldehyde. Thankfully, by the time you get it in the car, it's pretty much out-gassed, and shouldn't smell at all, unless the carpet was very recently made. Formaldehyde is everywhere, but putting it in an air freshener seems bizarre.....

Tahoe Shark

Not road warrior#2,

Just a nice car to leave stock and one that my wife can join in the fun with. She doesn't like spectator sports and we have been sharing the driving events in the 94. The good part is I won't have to share either.

Jim bailey - 928 International

So what does one do when surrounded by 15 feet of snow ? plan for the summer !! Maybe you will be dug out by May !!

Sharker Image

all those chemicals will eventually bring back some kind of smell!

if you put an air purifier, that you might use in your house, in the car, with all windows, doors, etc. closed, and let it do its job for 24hours, the car will small fresh like from the factory and you have no other chemical smells in the car.

it is amazing what the effect is, believe me!

Joe '87 S4

You could take it to one of the open road races and do 160 with the windows down. Not really recommended but sure would be fun. My car was a smoker's car but the mold from sitting for 8 years covered up the smoke smell pretty well. A fresh carpet install really helped a lot and does wonders for the look of the interior (along with a full interior cleaning). Clean the interior and install a new carpet and you should be good to go.

BrianG

Commercial cleaners use an Ozone generator to remove the smell of smoke from a house after a "minor fire" like a stove-top fire. (don't ask how I know) I'd say that they removed 99% of the smell that was there after some soup bones were reduced to ash on the stove-top over a period of about 4-5 hours, sitting in a stainless steel pot, set to HIGH. (I said dont' ask!!) The place was inhabitable by people with asthma after 2 days of this treatment.

Might be worth a try.