Not your average smoke residue... Interior question.

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pentatonicminor

New member
I have a gentleman I might be doing some work for who is... how can I put this delicately? Let's try of a Rastafarian persuasion. Anyone have any tips on deodorizing/cleaning this particular type of residue out of interiors? I've got most of the usual stuff around. I was thinking IPA and/or Sprayway for the glass, the usual folex and hot water extraction on the carpets, seats, etc. But I have no idea what to do as far as the headliner that won't beat it up terribly. I know this is probably going to be a mother of a job, as I could smell it three feet from the open door, but it's going to be well worth my while if it turns out well. Any ideas/strategies would be GREATLY appreciated. It's a 99 Tahoe, if that helps at all.
 
get an Ozone machine???

it's going to be everywhere..... in the vents and everything ... it's going to be very very hard to get that stuff out..
 
When I clean HL I use a MF towel folded in four, spray some APC on the towel and wipe the HL down. This removes about anything that I have come across. You do not want to get the HL real wet but damp using this method has worked well for me


You might also tell the customer that the cabin air filters should be changed those can hold a lot of smell.

I like to run Lysol threw the air vents by putting the car on recirculate and spraying that threw the vent on the outside of the car. this forces it threw the venting system
 
Gus-Gus said:
some people may call me crazy.. but i was dressing up my buddies truck (he smokes ALOT) with some Poorboys NL dressing and he was telling me how his headliner had all sorts of tar in it.. so when i was done i figured heck why not.. and i used the rag i was using with natural look on it on the headliner...it took of ALL of the tar with no problem whatsoever.. may wanna try that.. not sure if it was one of its intended uses..but it made the thing look brand new....just a thought
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lets just say this guy "smokes" alot too....
 
Hopefully they vehicle has a leather interior, which will help a little. I had one vehicle in particular which comes to mind, though if I get the drift of your description, this gentleman subscribed to another "brand" of smokes. :) I "deep cleaned" the vinyl with an APC 10:1 and followed up with PB's NL (the scent gave the cleaning a bit of a jump start). Cleaned/conditioned the leather using first a cleaner and then a conditioner. Cleaned the carpets by hand and "extracted" via my shop vac. Wiped down the headliner with a "dry sponge". Sprayed headliner and carpets with Febreze after the carpets dryed (left the windows down to assist in drying and airing out the vehicle. Then the single biggest help (IMO) was I placed a room-sized bag of Zeolite under the driver's seat, which helped with the ongoing issue. You can get both the sponge and the zeolite from the company Gonzo (IIRC). If you have a Container Store nearby they often carry both of those products.

Edit: Good points about the ventilation system. There are products which you can spray into the fresh air vent (under the hood).

That vehicle was some years ago, since that time I've learned about several new products related to carpet/upholstery cleaning. One of which are the tobacco smoke specific cleaners which can be used on both hard surfaced and textiles. If you have a janitorial supply company locally they would be a good source. I have two nearby. One has a location in Philadelphia which could get you the product fairly quickly I would guess.
 
Beemerboy said:
When I clean HL I use a MF towel folded in four, spray some APC on the towel and wipe the HL down. This removes about anything that I have come across. You do not want to get the HL real wet but damp using this method has worked well for me


You might also tell the customer that the cabin air filters should be changed those can hold a lot of smell.

I like to run Lysol threw the air vents by putting the car on recirculate and spraying that threw the vent on the outside of the car. this forces it threw the venting system
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Dave when you put a heat/cool system in recirculate that closes off the outside air and it recirculates from inside.

If you are spraying into the cowl vent outside you want it to be in normal mode that way it will draw in what you are spraying into the cabin. :idea
 
Try blue coral dry foam on the headliner. As far as OTC producs it seems to work the best and it has a nice smell to it so it might aid in getting the herbal scents out. I prefer car brite xtra duty over any interior cleaner made, but its not easy to get if you don't have a rep that comes around regularly. As stated earlier, the smell is going to be in the vents and everywhere else just like cigarette smoke does. The ashtray is going to be a major contributer to the smell too.
 
I'll bet if Tex Star runs into this with some regularity. Maybe he'll see the thread and let us know how he handles this type of situation. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have an ozone machine. I doubt many do unless they are running through some high volume dealership/wholesalers. Though one possiblity might be to rent one, if you can negotiate the price to make it worth your while. I know a local guy who bought a replacement car seat off of e-b@y. It turned out to be from a smoker's car, he found a local guy that sells the machines and also peforms restoration services. He managed to rent the machine at a price he considered reasonable.
 
Good advice all around... The guy's a friend of mine, so I told him I'm more than likely gonna need it overnight. That way I get to take my time and tweak the process as I go. I'll borrow an ozone machine (sadly, its outta my budget right now) and call around about Zeolite. Everything else shouldn't be too much of a problem to come up with. I'm pretty sure I have some HVAC duct cleaner around, too. The interior is cloth, so my LGM is gonna be getting a ton of work. Think I might actually rent a commercial one for this project. It'd be nice to have it around the house for a day for some other stuff, too. I'm hoping to give it a go this weekend, I'll keep y'all posted as far as results. Thanks a bunch!
 
Mr. Clean said:
I'll bet if Tex Star runs into this with some regularity. Maybe he'll see the thread and let us know how he handles this type of situation. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have an ozone machine. I doubt many do unless they are running through some high volume dealership/wholesalers. Though one possiblity might be to rent one, if you can negotiate the price to make it worth your while. I know a local guy who bought a replacement car seat off of e-b@y. It turned out to be from a smoker's car, he found a local guy that sells the machines and also peforms restoration services. He managed to rent the machine at a price he considered reasonable.
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I did see this thread.;) I will post up on it a little later on today with some of my techniques.:bigups
 
And this is why I don't smoke in my vehicles or home. The smell is so hard to get out.
 
You'll want to use a strong mix of IPA and soapy water. I'm preety familiar with cleaning resin off of and out of things. ;)

Just like cleaning a regular smokers car just gonna take a little more elbow greese as that stuff is sticky and a pia to get off.
 
TrueDetailer said:
I'm pretty familiar with cleaning resin off of and out of things. ;)
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I know what you mean. I gave up on my personal vehicals long ago. My wife won't even ride in my truck because of the skunky smell. Oh well....at least she's not always wanting to drive it haha.
 
When I was driving for DoItOutdoors, the Chevy W4500 forward cab truck they gave me had obviously been smoked in. The truck was simple, no fabrics, just vinyl, hard plastics, and white metal everywhere. I just took a tub of Huggies baby wipes and scrubbed the entire interior. I used the whole 72-count tub. I continued to smoke in the truck afterwards. When I returned it six weeks later, I only had to use 3 wipes to clean it up again.

Disposing of all those brown and black wipes after the initial cleanup is the second closest I ever came to quitting smoking.

I also cleaned out the particle filter in the AC system (it's behind the glovebox) on a weekly basis while driving the truck. The first time I cleaned it out, I was able to triple the flow through the system and it made the AC very effective very fast. The black jelly on the ground after rinsing off the filter was the closest I ever came in my life to quitting smoking.

I'm taking apart the blower motor sometime in April while I continue "spring cleaning" on the Torino. I expect to find rat's nest stuff, pens, all sorts of stupid stuff. I also expect to wipe everything down and become disgusted. But I ALSO expect it to work much better when I'm done and I might be able to get rid of the roaring sound on medium high and high fan speeds.
 
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