damn smokers

[BTE]

I went out today to clean what I had though to be spilled coffee stains on the armrest of my truck. Well I soon found out how big of a smoker the previous owner was.
What looked to be coffee drips were actually tar stains from cigarettes, cigars, whatever, that someone attempted to clean and just never finished.
These stains are everywhere once you actually look. The plastic trim pieces are the worst.

Here is a pic of one of the rags I was using to clean the truck. And mind you, all I was able to do tonight was the third door, the panel across the back and on the panel around the other rear window.



The color is off. It's actually an orange/brown color.

I was using purple power with this rag, and I was using Pine-Sol with warm water and another rag. The water was also orange/brown.

This sucks. Does anyone have a better method of removing cigarette tar from any interior piece? It still looks like it's not clean, and I have the rest of the interior to do.

Thanks,
-Brian-

[02s10350]

mmm yum i miss the detailing buisness lol i use to get that all the time.. go to autozone or somewhere and u can get a spray that goes in your vents and you leave it for 30 minutes and holly crap it works really good

[Kovz]

Quote: Originally Posted by 02s10350

mmm yum i miss the detailing buisness lol i use to get that all the time.. go to autozone or somewhere and u can get a spray that goes in your vents and you leave it for 30 minutes and holly crap it works really good

hmm, be more specific. post a pic of this stuff. how much does it cost...
everytime i turn on my a/c on my honda (daily) it smells like a musty basement for 10 seconds. then it's fine. but i hate the smell.

[MastaE1024]

idk, i would go over everything with a good all-purpose cleaner and then use one of those magic erasers with warm water to get off all of the residue. Its worth a try.

[BTE]

I think I may have to start replacing all of my interior. I looked in the light a little better today, and it still looks bad. I have the Med. grey interior, and it looks like taupe. I will try some stuff I found at work today.

This grime from the tar is even inside the vents and it smells like a damn bar whenever you first get in.

I think this guy smoked a pipe or cigar with the windows up every day. it's a shame.

I would also like to know what this stuff from autozone is that you spray in your vents is.

[TRILOGY]

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j/k !
i am a smoker, and i wipe down all the plastic interior parts on a regular basis with windex.
trust me, i'd like to quit but it isn't easy.

[rustyspring03]

Quote: Originally Posted by TRILOGY

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j/k !
i am a smoker, and i wipe down all the plastic interior parts on a regular basis with windex.
trust me, i'd like to quit but it isn't easy.

neither is breathing through a tube

[SammyLJ]

i'm a smoker and i damn well enjoy it!!!

[BTE]

I am myself an ex-smoker. I did occasionally smoke in my car and previous truck. But I think this guy was smoking something really heavy, like pipe tobacco or cigars..... with the windows up. In some areas, the plastic actually had a yellow/brown color to it.

I did try some stuff I got a t work made by a company called Foremost. It is an aerosol foaming all purpose cleaner. It is amazing! It's basically spray it on, scrub lightly with a tooth brush, and wipe clean. It works on plastic and upholstery. pretty much spray on, and wipe off.
I will try to get some pics tomorrow of what I am talking about.


But the smell is a whole other thing. I need something to kill the smell. Any ideas????????

[TRILOGY]

Quote: Originally Posted by rustyspring03

neither is breathing through a tube

preach on brotha ! preach on !

[rrray88sdime]

Quote: Originally Posted by TRILOGY

i am a smoker, and i wipe down all the plastic interior parts on a regular basis with windex.
trust me, i'd like to quit but it isn't easy.

amen to that. i clean everything on a regular basis, and spray some fancy schmancy auto expressions in my truck every night before i come inside, and atleast once a month ill buy a box of dryer sheets and put them under my seats, that helps alot


as far as the smoking.. im going on 3.5 years.. i know its bad, i hate it, im gonna start the patch soon haha.advice for anyone out there... quit while you can!!!!!, it saves your lungs, and the interiors of ur trucks lol

[nti06]

remove whatever interior pieces that are convenient to remove. take them in the house and put them in the tub. if you have a hand held shower head that would be the shit. take some dawn dish detergent in a durable paper towel or use the dawn disposable dish towels. use some warm water and start rubbing the nasty filth away. the water coming off will be brown/black.
consider this - you use dish detergent to clean your dishes, you eat off your dishes. so after washing you interior parts like that, then they are clean enough to eat off of. that should be good enough for you. especially if you take out the vents/ducts and clean them out. your breathing the air that blows through them. when you wash them and see the nasty black water, you'll feel like your doing some good.
as for the cloth/carpet, pressure wash or steam clean that.

[BTE]

Quote:

remove whatever interior pieces that are convenient to remove. take them in the house and put them in the tub. if you have a hand held shower head that would be the shit. take some dawn dish detergent in a durable paper towel or use the dawn disposable dish towels. use some warm water and start rubbing the nasty filth away. the water coming off will be brown/black.
consider this - you use dish detergent to clean your dishes, you eat off your dishes. so after washing you interior parts like that, then they are clean enough to eat off of. that should be good enough for you. especially if you take out the vents/ducts and clean them out. your breathing the air that blows through them. when you wash them and see the nasty black water, you'll feel like your doing some good.
as for the cloth/carpet, pressure wash or steam clean that.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that in order to take the ducts out, I'm going to have to take out most, if not all of the dash. Right?

The dryer sheet thing sounds like a good Idea as well, I will try it.

[Kovz]

still interested in this stuff you spray in the vents...

[haro2289]

just take it to an actual professional detailing place and ask them if they can get it out for you i'm sure they can no problem. If you can get most of it a lot of places will just do a section for you that you couldn't get out for cheaper. I detail cars professionally and we get stuff like that all the time, sometimes way worse. If it's a good shop they should be able to get it out. Also if you have them do a real detailing of the entire interior some places have an ozone machine which will neutralize odors from smoking, pets, and anything you can pretty much think of.

[nti06]

Quote: Originally Posted by BTE

I'm going to go ahead and assume that in order to take the ducts out, I'm going to have to take out most, if not all of the dash. Right?

im not sure. since i don't have a job now i'd like to take the ducts out of mine too. the previous owner lived down a dirt road. so im dealer with something quite a bit easier to clean.

[BTE]

Well this weekend, I shampood the entire inside of my truck. The seats and console came out and everything was gone over with the carpet cleaner. The used water from cleaning was almost black. It was pretty bad. I also left some cups of baking soda laying around to hopefully absorb some odor.

The smell has started to go away thank god, but some interior pieces look like they have been stained, so I may be looking for new ones.

I also found this spray that seems to help with smells. It's called Ozium. I found it at Advanced Auto.

[4.3Xtreme]

Wow, that sucks! Good luck with it all!

[Woolford]

take your seats out and then take your carpet out and power wash your carpet. I bet thats where alot of the smeel is coming from.

[Tex Star Detail]

For complete odor removal, every square inch of the interior needs to be cleaned.

When I clean tough/dirty plastic pieces I use a good APC (all purpose cleaner) and a WHITE scotch brite pad. They are safe and effective. Everything must be scrubbed down. All seats and fabric must be vacuumed and shampoo'd. I have a hot water extractor that I use on my clients' cars. The best method after that, is to use Ozone. Some detailing shops will have an ozone machine or fogger. What that does, is the fog/ozone with get into every crack and crevice and break down the odor, in the vents as well, as thet is where a lot of the odor may be coming from.
You can only get so far with scrubbing down everything. You cannot reach everything that needs to be cleaned. The cig smoke gets into everything, and the ozone does as well.
Sory for the long post, just giving a heads up.

[BTE]

What brand of cleaner would you recommend? And it seems like the tar permanently stained the plastic trim a kind of yellowish color, would the scotch brite pad remove any of this?

thanks

[casey53]

Quote: Originally Posted by BTE

What brand of cleaner would you recommend? And it seems like the tar permanently stained the plastic trim a kind of yellowish color, would the scotch brite pad remove any of this?

thanks

I smoke and I pulled my interior trim pieces out and washed them with Oxyclean in hot water, rinsed in hot water. Pieces look like new again.

[pirranah]

LMAO my interior never looks like that

[Tex Star Detail]

Quote: Originally Posted by BTE

What brand of cleaner would you recommend? And it seems like the tar permanently stained the plastic trim a kind of yellowish color, would the scotch brite pad remove any of this?

thanks

Try Simple Green, diluted to product specs. on the bottle. Yes, the WHITE scotch-brite pad should help get more off.

Good luck. If I can think of anything else, I will post it up

[TokoDragon]

pretty thick stuff, I'd find a cleaner that breaks it up some, like goo gone.


you're lucky you just got the tar and not the burns, my old truck was covered in cigerette burns, all over the door panal and the seat and floor, arm rest and near the visor on the roof. the dealership cleaned it, but there was still tar in the cracks in the panels. it even still had the plug in the plug in jack saying "No smoking" then I found sunflower seed bags crammed into wierd places, I guess he was trying to quiet .

[blazin24]

isn't there a trick of taking ammonia and water in a bucket and letting it sit in there for a day? not sure if it was ammonia or not but i heard it somewhere, its suppose to take away the odor.

[2lowws10]

def glad i quit smokin

[bvr_j_0969]

when my dads ex wife set the house on fire using gas....

me and my dad never could figure out why the house didnt smell smoky after we wiped the suet off the walls.

the arson invest. told us that gas soaks up alot of odors...

maybe set a gas jug in the floor with the top off it for a while...

just dont drive it lol

[goddspring]

Quote: Originally Posted by bvr_j_0969

when my dads ex wife set the house on fire using gas....

me and my dad never could figure out why the house didnt smell smoky after we wiped the suet off the walls.

the arson invest. told us that gas soaks up alot of odors...

maybe set a gas jug in the floor with the top off it for a while...

just dont drive it lol

if you still got the smell in your house you have to repaint it. i used to do fire restoration, get alot of kills oil base primer and paint everything, then use your latex interior paint.

[chevy84sdime]

well nice job on finding something that worked on the parts. for the smell...advanced auto (and im sure other parts stores...) has this new stuff...forgot what it's called but it's in a big black spray bottle...you can get it in "baby powder", "watermelon", and "green apple" or something. i sprayed the watermelon in my dime and i could smell it for 4-5 days. the instructions say to ONLY spray it 2 times in your vehicle at MAX.....so i'm almost positive it will make your smell go away. it's an oil based spray so dont get it on you.

[Nate8727]

Quote: Originally Posted by blazin24

isn't there a trick of taking ammonia and water in a bucket and letting it sit in there for a day? not sure if it was ammonia or not but i heard it somewhere, its suppose to take away the odor.

Nah, ammonia and bleach. Works wonders.

J/K Don't really use that, unless you feel like going to the hospital for chlorine gas inhalation.

[blazin24]

well your not suppose to breath it in.

[HondaGuy]

Quote: Originally Posted by kovz34

hmm, be more specific. post a pic of this stuff. how much does it cost...
everytime i turn on my a/c on my honda (daily) it smells like a musty basement for 10 seconds. then it's fine. but i hate the smell.

My Honda does the same thing... It smells like shiznit haha. I found out how to fix it though or this is what I've been told. Seems like a lot of work to do but you need to change the A/C in-cabin filter.

Oh and if you want the link to change it, here it is http://syclone.motocrew.com/CG5/acfilter.htm... sorry for jacking the thread, I'm done.