welcome back to Stauffer Garage, today we're gonna do a special video that has been requested a ton
by you guys on how to remove smells and odors from cars whether it's smoke mildew food you know puke
whatever it is i'm gonna show you guys the ideas and options you have to remove odors from your car
along with the ones that i recommend you guys try that'll work the best in more of a long-term
solution versus ones that are just temporary now to start out the first one we're going to talk
about today is we're just going to talk about detailing your car so if your car is just dirty
straight up get it cleaned vacuum it remove any smells or any food that's caked on places just
clean your car top to bottom remove any food or any dirt in the car whatsoever so that way one
you have a clean slate to understand where the odor is coming from but two there's nothing else
there for an odor unless it's embedded in your carpet which that's what we're going to get to in
the rest of this video now the first thing we're going to talk about is a rather simple thing that
a lot of people probably have lying around their house and that's fabric softener sheets you know
they come in many different smells this one's more like a just a spring original scent or whatever
but fabric softener sheets you can stuff these underneath your car underneath the seats so
that way the vents for the rear can blow it out you can even tuck these inside your air vents a
little bit to kind of make a makeshift stick air freshener this is a real quick option but these
are rather temporary it's more of for just an immediate fix if you're blowing air out of your
air vents to try to mask some of the odor but it doesn't neutralize odor like other things do
the next option which you guys all know and love these are little trees these are scented ones
american flag hoorah um but yeah these ones smell like vanilla these things hang from your
mirrors you can stuff them anywhere as well um but once again these things do run out of odor scent
rather quickly it's one once again kind of a masking type of solution um but they do work
if you want an immediate smell like whether it's you know island breeze or whatever you guys want
the next one this is an odor eliminator this is comes in a jar i just picked these up from the
store today so i don't even know what it looks like it's more of a gel let's open this beast up
but it is like a gel type substance in there
i'm guessing it's kind of like you know other things where it absorbs smells it's going to
release smells and kind of dry out um i bet it's kind of like the gel that you see for like in
diapers for instance so diaper has a medium inside of it that it soaks it up and turns it into a gel
like this or like any humidor for your cigars or anything like that where it absorbs moisture this
has already absorbed moisture and i'm guessing it's just going to leak out the smell over time
along with maybe trying to capture some of that odor and moisture in your car as well to eliminate
it but i'm guessing this will probably last you maybe a month or so before it kind of goes out you
can set this in your cup holder underneath your seat once again but it does it does do the job
and it's something more of a temporary quick thing that you can pick up next thing on the list this
is uh i picked these up these are called stealth sticks there's many different types of brands
the ironic part is that you guys saw in the before shots of this car it actually already had a couple
of them this is kind of what they look like they kind of clip on your air vent these ones are from
refresher car don't even know what brand it is but they suck pretty much because
once again you might as well hang an air freshener these ones are just more of a creative solution
to allow you to just to easily stick them on they go on to a single vent clip some cars these might
work some might not but they kind of open up so you can slide them on but they're essentially
just rubber that's soaked in a bunch of fragrance so over time they will deplete all of that smell
and they'll wear out which you can just quickly replace them maybe plug them in all your vents
it'll uh make it smell really good for a very you know very strongly for a short period of time and
then over time it's gonna die off now the next item on our list is also more of a not really an
air freshener but an old odor remover if you will so um these two all kind of do together in tandem
to kind of give you my opinion but this one right here is just a bag of coffee you know pick up a
cheap cheap bag of coffee whether it's folgers just get a big jar of it um ground coffee and
then also you have baking soda and the the point of these would be essentially you know you've
heard of putting coffee grounds in um smelly areas or moisture areas that kind of have a mildew smell
coffee absorb absorbs smells it absorbs moisture and then same goes for baking soda you know you
see most people in their fridge you know they'll leave a box open like this that'll help absorb
moisture and odor what you want to do with this is we're going to sprinkle it all over the floor mats
all over the carpet same with a coffee i would let it sit for a day or two and then just vacuum it up
and as long as your carpets are not wet make sure they're not wet whatsoever because if they're wet
you're gonna have a hell of a time getting it all up sprinkle it all on let it sit
and then just vacuum it all up in the morning and that'll remove some of the odors and
moisture that maybe is in your carpet or your floor mats to help remove those odors
uh the next thing is this is from mothers it's an odor eliminator bomb essentially um what you
do is you take one of these bad boys and there's many different brands i mean everybody makes these
things you can pick them up i got all this at discount auto parts so it's fairly easy to get
but what the the reason what you do with these things they come in an aerosol can like this
you're gonna take the lid off and what you want to do is this one in particular says start
your vehicle's engine close the windows sent the ventilation system to max cold and the fan to high
and on recirculation mode and then you're going to place this in your cup holder
you're going to pin this down and just let it fog the entire car and you're going to let it
sit for this one in particular says keep windows and doors closed for 15 minutes and leave the car
immediately because you don't want to smell this stuff in especially as the concentrations it's at
and then once you take it out of the car after 15 minutes open all your doors and windows and let it
air out for about 10 to 15 minutes if you do have a car that has been smoked in and you have some of
that lingering odor the nice part about these is it gets into your headliner it gets into your air
vents it gets into everywhere and kind of just fogs the entire car like a bug bomb would do in
your house um these things kick butt they work they're easy they're simple and the last three
options we have is the first one we're going to talk about i'm going to show some clips is just
extracting your carpets using a carpet cleaner whether you rent one whether you have one yourself
extract your carpets remove any of that dirt or odor that's embedded in those carpet fibers
and cleaning your floor mats and carpet thoroughly if they're rather dirty that's a great way to
illuminate eliminate odor as well especially with some of the shampoos that have odor neutralizing
properties you can pick those up at target or anywhere else i mean pretty much anywhere has an
odor type eliminator a carpet cleaning solution and the next option this is something that i use
frequently on the end of my videos this is a ozone generator i picked this thing up on amazon i think
it was probably i don't even know if it was a hundred bucks it might have been about 100 bucks
either way the way these things work is you're going to place it in the center of the car with
the windows up the same method the bomb worked is you're going to have the windows up you're
going to have it on recirculation with the car on and you're going to set this in there for i mean
go ahead and do 15 20 30 minutes i mean you can do it up on here to 120 minutes or leave
it on indefinitely i wouldn't recommend that i would say probably 30 minutes is sufficient
but this is going to generate ozone which is something that you do not want to breathe in
if you own one of these or have the opportunity to try one or buy one because ozone is toxic and it
will cause your lungs to burn it's really rather irritating it's nasty to breathe in and you can
definitely smell it when this thing turns on it's pretty instant you know exactly what the smell is
but set this in the car on recirc mode let it run and then once you're done hold your breath pull
it out of the car roll down the windows open the doors and just let it air out once again but what
ozone essentially does is the ozone molecule attaches to odor smells in the car breaks them
down into just oxygen and byproducts and expels them and removes them from your car these things
work really well as well it's a little bit more of a complicated solution than a bomb
but it does ensure that you break it down and i think if you combine this with maybe an odor
bomb afterwards you have a really good solution that's maybe more permanent than anything else
now a side option part of cleaning is one of these guys this is a wagner steam cleaner
steam cleaning is one non-chemical related it's just plain old water that's super heated
everywhere the cool thing about this stuff is is when you use a steam cleaner you can spray the
steam into your air vents which will neutralize and kill any viruses bacteria or mold you can
spray your entire car with it on the inside you can use it to clean your fabric or your carpets um
steam is really versatile it is just something you need to pay attention to with not getting you know
too close obviously you're going to burn or melt something but just steam in general is a great
way to neutralize any odors or remove any grime or anything caked in like i didn't tell the car once
i had milkshakes that were on the carpet or slime or just gum or candy and when it gets stuck like
that and solidified a steam cleaner kicks butt it literally will melt it and just allow you to wipe
it up or extract it afterwards um making it really easy to do so once again just be careful not
keeping it too close just within reason use common sense but steam cleaner is a good option as well