No one enjoys driving around in a stinky ride, but a lot of products only mask odors and don’t actually do anything to help remove the root cause of the problem. Lingering smells in your car can be an indicator of a problem that you don’t want to merely cover up or mask with air fresheners — they can also be a health or safety hazard over time.
So, how do you get rid of offensive car odors once and for all, and get your car truly clean?
Well, first, you can throw out those dozen-or-so Little Green Trees you have dangling from your rearview mirror and stuffed surreptitiously under your seats. With a little patience, elbow grease, and some solid know-how explained here, you’ll have your vehicle smelling pristine in no time.
What Causes Your Car to Stink?
Identifying the source of the stink is the first step in beating unpleasant car odors.
Mold and Mildew
So, you accidentally left your sunroof open and a freak rainstorm turned your car’s interior into a kiddie pool. Wet carpets and upholstery are prime breeding grounds for mold, mildew, and bacteria. Even vehicles with leather interiors can harbor an abundance of the stuff. The deeper into your car’s carpet and upholstery fibers these compounds get, the harder they are to remove.
Food and Drinks
Plenty of people use their cars as mobile restaurants. Inevitably, food and drinks get spilled somewhere. In cupholders, on the carpets, and under the seats are prime spots for bacteria to grow if you haven’t thoroughly cleaned or vacuumed those crumbs and spills.
Cigarette Smoke
The lingering smell from cigarettes, cigars, and other organic smokable substances is one of the most intense and all-consuming odors to try to get out of your car. It penetrates your carpet, upholstery, hard surfaces, and even your car’s filtration system.
Pet Hair and Urine
If you love taking Sparky with you everywhere you go, your car is likely being subjected to dirt, mud, water, hair, and yes, even microscopic urine and feces particles from your furry best friend. Gross, right?
Say Adios to Offensive Odors
When it comes to ridding your ride of a nose-wrinkling stench, the method or remediation may need to be more or less aggressive depending on what’s causing the stink in the first place. That said, there are certainly universal boxes to check in order to achieve a rigorous and effective cleaning, regardless of why your car reeks.
Clean Out Your Car
To tackle stubborn car smells, you have to start with a thorough cleaning. This involves reaching underneath the seats, in the center console, door pockets, and in the trunk. Remove all trash, food, and miscellaneous whatnot that shouldn’t be in your car.
Next, vacuum all the surfaces, including the door panels, thoroughly. Be sure to use a crevice tool that allows you to get deep down under and behind the seats. If you have kids, you might want to remove the back seats altogether in order to ensure a thorough removal of crackers, cereal, and gummy snacks.
Be Thorough
Don’t be fooled into thinking you can remove lingering car odors by simply doing a quick once-over. You have to commit to spending a good chunk of time and effort in order to get a truly clean and stink-free vehicle.
If you’re fighting a lingering musty or stale odor or cigarette smoke, consider replacing your car’s cabin air filter. Be sure to also vacuum the vents, where tiny micro-organisms can hide and continue to propagate after your otherwise thorough overhaul. You may even have to go so far as to spray an air deodorizer through your car’s intake valves in order to reach throughout your car’s entire ventilation system.
Be sure to wipe down all hard surfaces with a mild cleaning solution. Products like 303 All Surface Interior Cleaner, Meguiar’s Ultimate Interior Detailer, or Chemical Guys Total Interior Cleaner & Protectant are all carefully-crafted to provide professional cleaning results.
If all-natural DIY cleaners are more your speed, consider using straight baking soda sprinkled on carpets and cloth seats to help absorb stains, moisture, and odors. You can easily vacuum it right up once it’s done working. A 50/50 mixture of distilled white vinegar and water is a simple, yet surprisingly effective way to clean hard surfaces and kill odor-causing bacteria.
Deep Clean Your Carpets and Upholstery
Now that the loose detritus is gone, you’ll start to notice how badly stained your rugs and upholstery might be. Invest a few dollars in a well-reputed and specially formulated auto upholstery cleaner.
Products like Chemical Guys Foaming Clean Carpet and Upholstery Shampoo, Meguiar’s Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner, or Mother’s Spray-on Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner are highly effective at removing stains on multiple fabrics and they leave behind a fresh, clean scent.
For particularly stubborn stains and smells, you may want to invest in a personal upholstery cleaning machine like the Bissell SpotClean Pro or the Hoover CleanSlate Plus that feature plenty of attachments that are designed for effectively getting into hard-to-reach spots. And, don’t be surprised if your ride requires more than one pass with a steam cleaner.
It’s Okay to Seek Professional Help
If your time is limited and your budget isn’t, or the thought of tackling this job all on your own makes you want to hide under the covers all day, try enlisting the help of a professional auto detailer. Many offer a variety of services that can fit almost any budget, from quick, laser-focused tasks to an all-encompassing interior overhaul.
Think about how awesome it would be to drop off your smarmy car that smells like a teenage athlete’s hockey bag and pick it up a few hours later smelling and looking like you just drove it off the lot. It’s likely to be money well-spent.
Finishing Touches
Now that you’ve addressed the root cause of your car’s mysterious stink, consider taking measures to prevent it from happening again in the future.
Use a car deodorizer or odor absorber like the Adam’s Charcoal Odor Eliminating bag, an all-natural charcoal and bamboo odor absorber, Fresh Wave Odor Removing Gel, or Meguiar’s Whole Car Air Re-Fresher, which don’t just mask smells, but help eliminate them altogether.
And, of course, remember to clean your car regularly! Don’t wait until you just can’t stand it any longer. Build time into your schedule to regularly clean your car, even if it’s only 2-3 times per year. This will help prevent bacterial overgrowth and the accumulation of odors and stains that make cleaning your car more like a prison sentence than a quick Saturday morning activity.
More Serious Smells
After all that, if the cause of your car’s distinctive odor smells more like gasoline, exhaust, or chemical fumes, you may have a more serious mechanical problem on your hands. Take your car to your favorite mechanic ASAP for further evaluation.