mamoon2

I've just picked up a car from auction and it really stinks of cigarettes. I was considering hiring a Rug Doctor carpet cleaner and setting about cleaning the interior and roof lining myself but after checking valeting prices it may not be worth while.

I've seen some companies advertising a fogging service that is supposed to rid the car of bad odours and for only £20. Do these work? or does the smell come back?

Can anyone in the know shed some light?

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

fogger works end of

mamoon2

Thats good news. I've found two places but one uses a can not a fogging machine. Do these work the same of the fogging machines?

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

yep can or bomb. All work the same way, chuck it in, windows closed, wait a while. Open windows, leave for a bit longer. Job done

mamoon2

Thanks

BOB.T

Don't go anywhere near your head lining with a wet vac, in fact be very careful with an ordinary one!

StickyMicky

Agreed, we dont touch head cloths at all apart from a quick rub with some multikleen and a damp cloth.

We leave the "heavy" head cloth jobs for the immigrants around the corner, who always seam to wreck them due to an over enthusiastic soaking

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

From experience Wet vaccing cars that stink of *** ash generally result in the car smelling worse after it has been done!

The car needs to be wet vacced then left out in the sun with all the windows/boot open to air out until its totally dry (24hours minimum), otherwise it'll reek when you get back in. After that douse everything fabric with a strong concentrate odour router. Failing that, I find Lynx deoderant works quite well at getting rid of *** smells (better than Febreeze ).

Head lining...tread carefully. Its very thin fabric/sponge flock ontop of a cardboard backing. Get it too wet and either the fabric will unglue from the backing or the carboard will delaminate/distort and sag. You can get away with spraying it lightly with a trigger gun and a damp cloth to spot clean stains (like foot prints ), but don't think about using the carpet washer on it.

Spraying the heater matrix with air-conditioner disinfectant also helps (they come with nozzles on long tubes so you can poke it through the recirculation flaps). The wurth stuff is pretty good, but leave it a while before driving or you'll go giddy from the fumes

You may want to also remove the lower trim panels below the dash (if present) as well as the trim surrounding teh ash tray and centre console to clean, as belive or not, they accumulate quite bit of ash on some cars driven by filthy b****ds.

StickyMicky

To be fair, if the outfit is not ran by utter cowboys (hard to find them these days), they should be using a deoderising product in the wet vac machine as they work, never had one smell worse after cleaning before

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

We have had this issue on many occasions though. Admittedly its on really bad cars though (I'm talking more ash and butts in teh carpets than the ashtrays), especially if they don't get a chance to air and out dry properly before collection.

We use Concept valeting products (http://www.conceptchemicals.com/concept/new-products/) and before that it was some stuff Bancrofts/Morelli supplied us with. I did once mix in some odour router concentrate in with the cleaner, but it foamed up terribly (I think the new stuff doesn't foam now, haven't tried it - still have gallons of the old stuff).

We now have a nice lady in a big Autoglym van that pops in. Valeting equivelent to the snap on man. So maybe we'll try their carpet cleaner once the Concept stuff has ran out.

StickyMicky

The stuff we buy in is called "Candy" and is none foaming, smells a bit like bubblegum

We usually hand the cars back to the customers after approx 4 hours and never ever had a complaint, apart from one focus boot mat that went "foisty" (big thick carpet and we had to really soak the thing to clean it, so no big deal really)

Went over it again with the deo stuff and it was spot on

Leslie

Must be horrible in the car. Sounds like there are a few ways to fix it anyway-good luck.

Les