# Quick! How to remove skunk odor from car in two days? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 11, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918 "2008-04-11T17:28:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/1 "2008-04-11T17:28:16Z")
My brother in law and his wife just had a baby! Yay! However, on the way to the hospital, he managed to hit a skunk… and now his car smells really strongly of skunk. He’s going to be taking his wife and new daughter (yay!) home on Sunday, and would really, really like to get the smell out before then. He’s pretty certain the smell is coming in through the vent. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/2 "2008-04-11T17:31:49Z")
Vinegar and water. If the stink is on the outside, buy one of those misting things for the garden. (It’s like a super duper industrial version of a Windex bottle). A friend of mine used to buy Skunk-Off for his dog, until he read the ingredients (vinegar and water). Presumably the acid is what makes tomatoe juice effective too. ETA: You want to buy the pressurized kind of spray mist bottle. It looks like [this](http://www.enterthedragons.com/supplies/Sprayer.jpg) but is generic and totally empty. You pump it by hand to pressurize it. The mist will help you saturate everything well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_chao_goes_mu/32/3191_2.png) [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/3 "2008-04-11T17:32:14Z")
Spray white vinegar all over the car and into the vents. That’s all I got. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/4 "2008-04-11T17:42:16Z")
Go to a pet stoe and/or health food store and ask for zeolite, a mineral used for air freshing. It will do it in 2 hours. We once used it to destink a house that had spent a July weekend with a corpse in it. That stuff works! ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/5 "2008-04-11T20:31:02Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] Go to a pet stoe and/or health food store and ask for zeolite, a mineral used for air freshing. It will do it in 2 hours. [/QUOTE] But how does it work on the outside of the car? I can understand it dealing with the dor i nthe car, but if the spray is all over external parts and getting sucked in by the vents, will the zeolite still be effective? Maybe a carwash + zeolite combo. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/6 "2008-04-11T20:50:15Z")
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone] Maybe a carwash + zeolite combo. [/QUOTE] I’ll second the carwash. Make sure to get the underbody flush. ETA, probably want to spray the underbody with the vinegar water solution first. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/7 "2008-04-12T01:01:23Z")
Nothin’. You’re boned. ---
**Author:** ![ASAKMOTSD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/8 "2008-04-12T18:50:54Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] We once used it to destink a house that had spent a July weekend with a corpse in it. That stuff works! [/QUOTE] There is a product endorsement in there somewhere! ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/9 "2008-04-13T15:12:35Z")
Its something that I’ve always been curious about. What does it smell like? Bad eggs,excrement or what? ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/10 "2008-04-13T21:36:54Z")
[QUOTE=Lust4Life] Its something that I’ve always been curious about. What does it smell like? Bad eggs,excrement or what? [/QUOTE] Wikipedia describes it as smelling like a combination of rotten eggs, garlic and burnt rubber. That matches my experience. In concentration, skunk spray does a lot more than just smell bad - it makes one’s eyes and nose burn. It nauseates. The stuff isn’t just stinky - it’s a true chemical weapon. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/11 "2008-04-15T18:16:42Z")
[QUOTE=Joey P] I’ll second the carwash. Make sure to get the underbody flush. ETA, probably want to spray the underbody with the vinegar water solution first. [/QUOTE] We hit a skunk a couple of years ago while on a driving trip. Every time we stopped the car, the aroma drifted in. but fortunately not too bad. No smell at all when the car was moving. Honestly, all we did was park the car outside for a few days (no way were we going to park that car in the attached garage!), and also go to a car wash, including the undercarriage wash as suggested above and by others. It may have helped that we were 2 hours away from home when we committed vehicular skunkicide so, well, there was plenty of time at speed for any skunk fritters to get vibrated off the car frame. Could you be a pal and drive your BIL’s car around for a bit? The vinegar/water thing couldn’t hurt, either. Or tomato juice, I suppose, though that’s a bit pricey in those quantities plus you don’t want someone seeing you hosing what appears to be BLOOD off in the driveway, and calling the police! ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-how-to-remove-skunk-odor-from-car-in-two-days/444918/12 "2008-04-16T01:44:40Z")
I think if you want to do a thorough job of this in 2 days, you are going to have to burn the car and then move away from wherever you burned it.