How to Get Smells Out of Your Car

You have to think like a smell to get rid of them!

Last time I mentioned that one of the big no-no's in detailing is to use buckets of hot soapy water on your interior. That is one of the biggest creators of a sour smelling interior and it makes getting the smell out super hard. So, how do you think like a smell? People that are good at porting racing heads like to say they "think like air" when grinding and filling ports to make horsepower. They know that air moves in a certain way. Air moves in a car interior too. Smells come from one basic thing...moisture. Moisture creates mold and mildew. Spilled mustard is wet and, if it could only totally dry, it wouldn't smell, but there is always some humidity in the air, and that is why the smell keeps coming back. That is why you don't use lots of water on an interior. A bad smell like pet urine soaks into your carpet. If you use hot soapy water on it, you dilute the problem, but spread it over a larger area. Once the smell is bad, then it coats everything inside the interior. The dash, seats, carpet, (and here is where you have to think like a smell) even under the seats, dash and on the headliner! Yes, that smell may be coming from above your head! You must also determine how deep the smell is. Smells on the headliner will be surface only unless it has gotten wet somehow. But smells on a carpet can be down past the padding underneath. If the smell producing problem is on the surface, don't make it worse by soaking the entire area and spreading to deeper and wider. Use your carpet cleaner in a small area and if the smell is deep, soak only that area with something to kill mold/mildew and neutralize smells. The stain from most spills is just nap deep, the smells can be much deeper.