Hey guys
So I’ve inherited a 2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder. The soft top roof on this car has apparently been leaking for years, the rear window is barely hanging on. The interior smells horrible it has signs of animals using it for a home, there is a lot of mold.
I am considering lowering the top covering the dash with plastic to prevent too much water from getting to the electronics the pressure washing the interior and leaving the top down to dry. How terrible is this plan?
If it’s moldy smelling I don’t think more water is the answer(?) - rather maybe stuff like lysol, bleach (in solution), carpet/upholstery cleaner, sunlight?
It probably won’t dry well, then you’ll have more mold to deal with. Take out the seats, remove the carpet, clean them separately, then look around the interior for signs of more mold. Remember, mold likes air vents, too.
I would do this.
Buy a general purpose hose sprayer and a bottle of wash concentrate.
And then rinse like crazy.
A very terrible plan. You will force water into places where it will takes weeks to dry out, accumulating more mold and mildew in the meantime. Maybe a better idea is to rent a steam cleaner, the type used to clean carpets.
I don’t know if you want to put any money into it but there are probably places that do this professionally.
donate it to some charity and get a tax write off !
You’re probably never going to get it clean and as others have said just make it smell even more like mold than it already does. That smell (likely mold) is probably coming from places that never dried properly and won’t dry properly if you try to do it yourself. Under the seats, way down in the upholstery, in the seats, in the ductwork, in the trunk and any other little nooks and crannies that that water can get into. Years ago someone I know had her car involved in a flood. She called her mechanic and his advice was to just leave it alone for a few weeks until the stench is unbearable and the mold had taken over and then call the insurance company and ask them to deal with it since at that point they’ll total it. According to him, it she called right when it happened, it would be a never ending fight against the mold.
If you really want to salvage it, I’d suggest pulling out all the seats, the carpet, the headliner as well as any other fabric and leaving them out in the blazing sun* for a few days/weeks. In the mean time scrub the interior of the car with a mild bleach solution.
When that’s all done, I’d (in a perfect world), see which of the parts that need to be put back in can be picked up from a salvage yard and go from there. If it still smells, you could look in to renting an Ozone Generator and letting that run for a day or two.
But, honestly, if you got this for free, I’d see if you get donate it to a charity and get a nice tax break. You’ll make money instead of spending it. Hell, you might even be able to sell it (as is/where is) for a few hundred dollars.
Water does a lot of damage and the damage it does to cars is notoriously difficult to rectify.
ETA and just to say it again, pressure washing a car that smells because it has water damage is just going to make matters worse. You’re just going to force water deeper into the places where it’s already causing problems.
Remove the carpet and replace it with do it yourself fake Rhino lining that you can paint on.
I pressure washed the inside of my mini van many years ago. Big mistake. Yes I think some electronics went out and I’m not sure the carpets every smelled good again… Bad idea.
As a fleet manager I saw a couple of cars written off after being driven into a deep ford. I saw one the next day and it looked fine, if a little damp - the insurance company wrote it off without blinking.
Put a couple of large animal carcasses in the vehicle, close it up, and leave it for a dozen weeks or so.
The resulting smell will completely make you forget about the scent of mold. 
Don’t do it! I had a 2003 Eclipse Spyder that leaked like a mofo, and also developed that kinda moldy canvas smell after a while. Not as bad as your describing, so mine cleared up every time by just leaving the top down for a few days in my driveway to refresh the smell. Even if you get rid of the smell, if the top still leaks, the odor will be back again and again.
Oh, and the only way to stop the leak is to replace the convertible top. Price that out, and be prepared to be horrified at the cost. I’m going to agree with the suggestion to donate the car. And if you really want an Eclipse, there are plenty available for a decent price, without the curse of a leaky top.
I ended up trading in the Eclipse, and bought another (better) convertible. My current car IS sporting a new top, and my saga of getting that installed, corrected, installed again, corrected again, and readjusted several times would make a fine Pit thread. I might have to share that story sometime…it’s a doozy! :smack:
It sounds like the car is a liability, not an asset. Don’t donate it unless you hate the charity you are “giving” it to. Or maybe they can break it down into parts and sell some useful parts. Or maybe you can do that.
Anyhow, sometimes things don’t look like a total loss, but they actually are. I suspect that’s true of this car.
The cars are turned in scrap metal , charities sell the cars to junk yard they don’t drive them !
If you donate it, just make sure you do that with a charity that works with cars regularly and can take a shit vehicle without trouble. I’m saying this as someone who works for a charity whose Development Director thought it was a great idea to start taking vehicle donations, and who was wholly unprepared for the pieces of shite people dumped on us. It ended up costing us money to have the crap cars towed away. A place that’s accustomed to those kinds of donations, maybe that’s fine, but here they just sat in the parking lot, taking up precious parking (we’re often tripled up), and lost money in the end.