How to eliminate smoke odor?

I just bought a 2002 Grand Am and didn't notice until after I bought it that is has a smoke odor inside the car. I have covered the seats with baking soda, cleaned off the interior, soaped the seats and floors, lysol'd the interior, febreezed everything, and even tried some wierd online suggestions like using a mixture of viniger and water to clean off the plastic. Nothing has seemed to work. I have a feeling it is comming from the air vents, but I have no idea how to clean them out. Any help would be awesome! Thanks!

I just bought a 2002 Grand Am and didn't notice until after I bought it that is has a smoke odor inside the car. I have covered the seats with baking soda, cleaned off the interior, soaped the seats and floors, lysol'd the interior, febreezed everything, and even tried some wierd online suggestions like using a mixture of viniger and water to clean off the plastic. Nothing has seemed to work. I have a feeling it is comming from the air vents, but I have no idea how to clean them out. Any help would be awesome! Thanks!

Well you sound like you are off to a good start. You may have to go over the fabric and carpeting a few times. Standard carpet cleaners Like woolite works well on the carpet and seats and "tuff stuff" works well on tough spots vinyl and plastics. For the vents the best suggestion is to get a rag and try to clean down into them the best you can. You can also spray some febreeze or other odor eliminator in them to help give it a more pleasant sent. Make sure that you clean all the edges as well, and if you want the headliner too. However if you do the headliner you have to be very careful since it can get messed up pretty easily when cleaning it. You also may want to air the car out for a few days. all of this has worked well for me in the past to clean up the interior to remove the smoke smell.

I have scrubbed the headliner a few times and I can't tell if it smells or not now. I don't know how to clean out the air vents though. Do the plastic spinny air directors come out or what? I really wanna clean the vents but don't know how to get to it. Thanks!

Hello biteme, try the below link it has the procedures for removing the vents and then some :D

N-Body Appearance-Non-Performance (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1988)

and Welcome to AF !

What has worked best for me is to rent an Ionizer machine from a rental store. Basically its the same thing they put in hotel rooms to remove the smoke smells. Close the windows and plug it into the outlet and let er go. It has a timer on it and I usually run it without the car running for about 4 hours and then with the car running and the AC or heat running for another hour or so. It works great.

ozium, you can buy it at hardware stores and places like that it gets rid of any smell guarenteed

Yeah thankx for the tip blindy, but please look at the dates before posting in outdated threads.

We dont need to bring up threads older then 3 months.


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