how do i get the ciggarette smoke smell out of my car? i just stopped smoking and the smell is driving me nuts.
Clean your windows with Windex – all of them and wipe down all the plastic too. You’ll see a film disappear. Put a nice dusting of either baking soda or one of those powdered carpet cleaners (if you want a floral scent) and leave it on there a few hours. Pat it in the seats if they are fabric. Then vacuum the crap out of them–literally. Fabreez works well, but you need to get everything cleaned first.
You can also go buy a room freshner and just leave it opened under your seat for a while.
Hope it helps! And good job on quitting!
Empty and wipe down all ashtrays.
Vacuum the ashes out of the carpet and seats.
Wipe all the hard surfaces with Windex or similar.
Spray Febreeze liberally on all upholstery and carpet.
Drive around with all the window open for a while.
If it still smells in a couple of days, buy a little tree for your mirror.
All the suggested cleaning processes are good, and should be done first. I forget if anyone mentioned this, but if not: don’t forget to do the ceiling, too!
But the smoke will have percolated deep into the foam rubber of your seats and so, too, which aren’t really cleanable. These odor molecules will gradually outgas for weeks or even months. What you need for that is vinegar:
Get a clean plastic container with a snap on lid – a Cool whip or Sherbet container would be perfect. Make dozens of small holes in the lid – punch it with an icepick or use a heated nail. Stuff some cotton rags (old tshirt, washcloth, whatever) into the container and pour enough white (distilled) vinegar onto the rags so that they are saturated but there’s no liquid vinegar sloshing about in the container. Put the perforated lid on.
Stick the container in some out of the way spot, like under a seat or on the back window deck and ignore it for a few weeks. I don’t know if the vinegar breaks down the cigarette smell or absorbs it or what, but so long as the vinegar rags are moist they’ll keep your car from smelling smokey.
If after a month or so you notice that the cigarette smell is coming back, take the container out, wash and dry the rags, remoisten with vinegar, and put it back in your car.
After you realize it’s been some months without redoing the vinegar OR smelling the smoke you can discard the container.
If you let your ashtray get really really full like I used to, make sure that you don’t just clean your ashtray, but also the part of the dash that the ashtrat goes into. I had stalagtites of ash-crud and sedimentary layers of the years of ash. I ended up having to go at it with a toothbrush. It was really gross, and it stunk. It also had the certain stink to it that made me want a cigarette. Only smokers know what I’m talking about. Clean under the dash too. Lord knows how it got there, but there was anough to make a couple paper towels black on my car.
I second the cleaning suggestions, that should be obvious. But I recalled a couple weird ones that I did too. Strange things reside in the deep dark corners of my brain. I have no recall of where I heard these.
Crumple up a bunch of newspapers, enough to fill your car, and park your car in the sun with the windows rolled up. I have no idea why this worked.
Put a plate on a level surface of the car, pour Mountain Spring Tide or some similar smelly laundry detergent. Again, leave it in the hot sun.
I second the vinegar. In fact, I don’t even get fancy with it. Just put a cup in a cupholder, pur a few ounces of viengar in it, and drive around with it for a few days.
Check this thread for some more suggestions.
In my OP I said that treating my car with baking soda only made it smell like nicotine biscuits, but I can say now that after the baking soda smell itself wore off, the car does indeed smell better. Not all of the smokiness is gone though, and I haven’t gotten around to trying anything else as yet.