There are many things you can do to make your interior smell better without using air fresheners.

My friends and family regard me as "The Interior Master"

For example, I have made my 76 Celica smell like a new car.

First, detail your car, by starting off with a good vacuuming. Also take Q-Tips to vents and crevices, getting dirt and grime out. Believe it or not, removing your front seats to vacuum yields a TON of dirt and debris.

For NASTY odors, get a bag of Kingston Charcoal like you would for a grille. Just open the bag top and set it in a central part of the interior. Charcoal absorbs odors.


First, get some Meguiar's vinyl no. 44 spray. It smells like a new car. Or, you can get their liquid scrub that takes out ingrained dirt from the vinyl. This all comes in their tan bottles that are from their "professional" products.


For carpets, and yes you'll find this odd and amusing:

Buy a bottle of Simple Green. Then, remove your interior carpet and spray the hell out of it with the Simple Green. Next, take the carpet to a car wash where they have a high pressure hose. Only use the water function (No soap). Finally, let the carpet dry in the HOT daylight sun. So do it on a day where you no there will be no cloud cover, no rain, and above 80 degrees. Works best on tan carpet, but will clean up black too. Thank me later.

For leather, you can clean it with Soft Scrub lemon (NO BLEACH!!!). Then just wipe the seats with a damp washcloth or buff it in. I recommend this for interiors that are HORRIBLE and TAN ONLY. You can use a suede brush for the suede and suede cleaner. Also, consider going to a shoe section of a store and buy a can of Kiwi suede waterproofing aerosol. This will help resist stains AND liquid spills.

For softening this leather, buy a bottle of Needsfoot Oil. Many farmers use this for saddles and other hard leather equipment. It works wonders on hardened leather seats. Allow it to dry for about an hour after applying it, because it will make your clothes greasy until you wash them. It doesn't leave stains or anything.



For a new car vinyl-esque smell, go to a dollar store and buy a clear vinyl shower curtain and make a slit in the packaging all the way across, removing any cardboard labeling inside. Set it in the back seat floor section and keep it there for however you want. Works great for stinky trunks, too.


For upkeep, you can select Meguiar's matte finish for your interior panels. It comes in a red spray bottle which can be purchased at any auto chain store. Or go with their deep glossy bottle, whichever you prefer.

Investing in a set of new floormats from iPD that are the molded rubber kind aid a bit too.


Some of these tricks will even eventually bring back that original "Volvo smell" which two of my 850's have had. Or, they leave you with a clean smelling interior

Hopefully this provides a guide for neat ideas to get smells and stains out of your interior!

Get your car looking and smelling nice inside for less than $20!

 

Nice

When I gutted mine, I used simple green to clean most of the floorpans and other metal parts.

I just used a carpet cleaner from autozone. worked great. just dont rub hard.

Then cleaned all the new pieces and I have a new car smell. minus the headliner glue. smells like someone was smoking pot. good thing it is gone.

 

Don't forget to constantly treat your dash or else it will crack and you'll get the well known warping by the glove box.

 

still no pictures????????

 

They're up you ****! Check my thread for my car

My 850 does not have the common dash peel. AWESOME

 

Any idea to eliminate smoke odor? I used steamed onion, charcoal, vanilla and had detailed it, but after several hour under sun it still smell that.

 

You need to take the carpet out and do my Simple Green trick.

You can use household bleach cleaner like Lysol to wipe the panels off with.

Keep on with the charcoal.

Clean every square inch of your interior the best you can.

It will eventually come out.

 

Im a new Volvo owner. How do I remove the carpet?

 

Remove the front seats and lift the center console.