I bought a used truck today. XLT trim with cloth seats. The interior smells just a little funny. I believe it's some mixture of cigarette smoke, cheap air freshener, and carpet shampoo from the dealer. All this combined with sitting out in the sun for a couple of weeks at the dealer lot.

So anybody got any ideas to make the truck smell like, well like nothing? Right now she's out in the garage with all four doors open and a stand fan going. Will probably leave her that way all night. Any other smell good solutions? One crazy idea I had was a pan of baking soda in the truck. The mess potential of that one scares me. I put my nose on the headliner, seats, and carpet. Nothing itself smells bad, but the truck smells a little funny inside if you take a deep breath.

 

Try febreeze in the air vents
The smoke gets in the vents
Hopefully helps

 

I heard putting dryer sheets under the seats for a few days will help. It's what a salesmen told me when I bought my f150 cause the people who had it before me smoked constantly in it. Id just get some febreeze and spray it in there and get an air freshener in there

 

i had the same problem when i bought my xlt. i think its something the dealership does to help cover up the cigarette smell. after a month or two it went away for me.

 

if it were mine i would pull the carpet and seats out and steam clean them. then i would clean the headliner the best you can with a lightly soaked rag in soap and water and then scrub the rest of the interior plastic with a good interior detailer spray. be sure to let the seats and carpet dry completely before you put them back in. whatever is in the vents will be hard to get too, you could try fabreeze but i havent found that to work very well.

 

You can get the refrigerator baking soda that's in a box with some sort of screen built into it then toss it under the seat. That's what I do, that and good old fabreeze.

 

The dryer sheet thing does work, thats what I do with our crews' trucks over the winter. They leave pop, food, clothes, underwear (literally), and any other number of unimaginable things in there to rot in the summer sun. Then, once winter hits I get to clean it up. So, to make it easier I pick up the large debris, shop vac everything, garden hose the interior and let air dry. (They all have rubber floors) Then grab a couple dryer sheets, use a paper clip to "twist tie" them to a wire or something under the seat. Then it absorbs anything I may have missed. Makes a 4+ hour job turn into a 1-2 hour job tops.

I leave the sheets in there till I get them the next winter, everyone seems to be pleased with the "cleaned" smell. Even though it (to me) still reeks of musty food/pop and melted m&m's in the door pockets.

 

Crank on the defrost and spray the air freshener in the cowl on your hood where the air is drawn in.

All these tricks work great as a temporary fix but the only way to completely solve the problem is to clean everything.

 

I'm really weird about smells. The reason it smells is because the fabric has reached its saturation point. You can clean till your blue in the face unless you clean the crud in the vent system it will all be done in vain. You can buy an odor bomb on the internet that binds and destroys organic and inorganic molecules tthat cause the bad smells. Just turn the truck on with the heater working and the Windows up and it'll take care of everything. I hope this helps. You can also you an ozonator

 

Try using vinegar put sone in a bowl roll up windows and l put bowl of vinegar in the truck let set as long ad possible. Truck will smell of vinegar for maybe two days but after that it will go away and should be no smells I did it to m wides truck. Kids got sick in it. It smelled awful. Did the vinegar and no mote horrible smell.