Help with stinky vehicle

[1BAD68]

Last winter my wife and I bought a used car for my mom, its a VW Beetle.
It's a one owner, well maintained, decent transportation.
The guy we bought it from told us it was his wife's car and she drove it until he bought her another new one.
Since he bought the new one, he was using this one after work to go to the gym until he finally sold it to us.
Anyway, I noticed the smell when we bought it but figured I'd shampoo the interior and detail it then give it to my mom.
Fast forward to now...
My mom was in the hospital recently and I decided to get the car and detail it again as well as do some maintenance.
The nasty BO smell is still there so I have been shampooing it, baking it in the sun, using a ozone air purifier, trying every odor remover I can find for the last two weeks and the smell goes away for a few hours and then comes right back.

[Darkman]

Reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld....

Eliminate one source at a time. Take out the seats and store them away from the car, let it air out, then see if the smell is coming from the seats or the carpet. If it is the seats, replace them.


Failing that, you may only have one option.....gas + match = smell gone

[UFO]

Have you tried fabreze?
I used it on some burlap that was in great condition just had that old smell to it.
Worked great after two applications.

[tan top]

 bought a car salvage like that !!   years ago !!  before i even started to repair it  , stripped the interior  , pressure washed the carpet  then with  high strength detergent scrubbed it & pressure washed  it again !! same with seats  , door panels !!!  moulded headliner !!   obviously it was before airbags & no electrical stuff in the seats ,  use an aqua vac thingy to suck out as much water as possible , &   let them  drip dry, ( hang every thing up gravity ) for 2 days in the sun !  
(if you decide to pressure wash/ steam clean ) be carefull you don't blow a  hole in the  seat material by going too close ( it can happen !!  seen a guy do it ) !!
if you have leather trim ,  skip the  pressure washing !!

Reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld....

Eliminate one source at a time. Take out the seats and store them away from the car, let it air out, then see if the smell is coming from the seats or the carpet. If it is the seats, replace them.


Failing that, you may only have one option.....gas + match = smell gone

ever see mythbusters , where they put a dead pig in a corvette & locked it in a shipping container for weeks or months then atempted to get rid of the smell  

[twodko]

Try some good ole Lysol spray. Emmmmm good!

[Tilar]

Headliner maybe? You can buy a car from a smoker and until you take the headliner out and clean it, you cant get the smell of smoke out of it. Might be the same here...

[68X426]

Try laundry fabric softener sheets stuffed in strategic locations. Remove when you can't smell the sheet anymore.

Careful though the sheets can kill you.

[bajaherbie]

i've owned vw's for close to 20 years.... its probably the seats. you could remove the seat covers and buy new seat pads and then re-use the seat covers. all you need is a hog-ring pliers and a handful of the rings. its an easy job to do.

[68coronetGLwannabe]

Get a small bag of Plain Charcoal (NOT the kind with lighter fluid in it) Fill up a couple small disposable pie pans and stick them under the seats.  When I bought my Dually it had a horrible smell and this worked for me.  After about a week or so the smell was completely gone. Its an easy cheap thing to try.  That was two years ago and the smell has never came back.

[b5blue]

Vodka, my neighbor swore by it....no don't drink it....spray it on heavy and let it soak. I would try peroxide first though, I've had good results in the past.

[1BAD68]

I tried Febreeze which worked great years ago on a 70 charger I had that had rats living in it but didn't work on this car.
The vodka trick sounds like it would work (alcohol kills germs) I'll give it a try.
As far as the charcoal, can I use plain old Kingsford charcoal?
I'd like to try the easy stuff before replacing parts.

[b5blue]

A mix of laundry soap, peroxide and baking soda (I believe it's baking soda) is used to de-stink dogs that have been sprayed by skunks. It breaks the molecules down that form the stink into their components.  (I just saw a show on PBS about skunks.) Both work as disinfectants (91% isopropyl alcohol) and peroxide is used as a debriding agent, breaking down organic compounds for cleaning.   

[68coronetGLwannabe]

I tried Febreeze which worked great years ago on a 70 charger I had that had rats living in it but didn't work on this car.
The vodka trick sounds like it would work (alcohol kills germs) I'll give it a try.
As far as the charcoal, can I use plain old Kingsford charcoal?
I'd like to try the easy stuff before replacing parts.

Plain old Kingsford charcoal will work fine.

[aussiemuscle]

we have a product in australia called Glen20 which is good for this. it's a quality disinfectant surface spray.

[Vainglory, Esq.]

Member Jake has a product that's used for exactly this type of thing, but I can't recall what it's called.  Maybe he'll chime in.

[hemihead nc]

...natural charcoal works better than briquets....

[1BAD68]

Well the vodka was promising, it eliminated the odor completely and left a very faint antiseptic type smell but then the horrendous odor came back once the vodka evaporated.

[71green go]

Go to a large pet store and get the odor killer for skunks that you wash pets in after they were sprayed....its amazing 

[b5blue]

Well the vodka was promising, it eliminated the odor completely and left a very faint antiseptic type smell but then the horrendous odor came back once the vodka evaporated.

The funk must be in the foam also then. Try the skunk treatment only really soak it well then wait awhile and shop vac the heck out of it....God I hate stinky cars, my buddy is a walking BO factory (with dogs!) and his Towncar reaks! I make him put newspaper down before he gets in my car! Good Luck my nose feels sorry for you guys.

[Budnicks]

Oxi-Clean laundry soap or the all purpose stuff, works well on carpet & headliner, I think it would be OK on the seats also, wipe everything down thoroughly with solution & sponges, you will get drenched by the stuff by the time your done, rinse off excess with water with sponges & shop vacuum the heck out it after to remove the bulk of the water... It kills stains & proteins that cause the odor's... good luck