restoring exterior trim and cigarette smell

Hi everyone
got a couple of issues with my V6 Freelander I just bought and am hoping some of you can help ?

1. The previous owner was a heavy smoker and the thing reeks.......had the windows open, fabreezed it but just cant rid. is there any way of cleaning the aircon filter or doing something similar ?

2. The exteior trim has faded (its a 2001 model ) ....is there anything anyone can recomend to get it back to its original colour ?

Many thanks in advance.

Gary

use an Aircon "Bomb"

Is it a black one?

It's silver my friend.........just bought it off the bay of evil last week.

Will try an aircon bomb......any suggestions on the best one to use ?

Gary

Try linseed oil or WD40 for your trim. WD40 worked well on mine.

peanut butter (smooth)

You must change the pollen filter.

Get a little bottle of 'Oil of Citronella' from the chemist - a few drops onto an orange or vanilla 'Magic Tree' will work wonders.

An alternative is one of the little wooden ball type air fresheners that you can drip the Oil of C onto.

i leave one of these in the center console cubby ..
cubby lid open when parked overnight .. closed when driving

Neutradol Original Gel | Room Gels | M S George Limited

effectively gets rid of tobacco smell .. and doesn't really leave an odour of it's own ..

to use on the pollen filter .. i'd choose the spray version
~~~~~

i buy it for house use .. from a local shop .. have not tried the 'car' versions

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as for plastic / rubber trim .. my vote would go to:
'Armor All® Original Protectant'

works a treat ..

Big mistake buying a car that's been smoked in. Masking the odour with 'air fresheners' might help but that nicotine smell will take ages to fade if ever. It gets into the fabric of the car, theres no substitute for a good scrub with soap and water and a wet vac.
Seats, all plastics, glass, carpets, door cards, headlining the lot...

iam with chaser on the get scrubing m8 or it will get on what u have on and u will smell like a 20 a day kind of guy never nice

the smell i can't help you with... never found a good way to fix that,have tried all the stuf you can buy but its only for a short while.
as far as the trim goes we use a method that is cheap and works on all pu (the most used black and gray plastic exterior trim)body parts, you take a hot air gun and heat the trim up to a poit that the pu plastic gets shiny.(to practice you might want to do underside of the bumper first)
your trim gets faded because the stuf that makes the colour and flexibility is the same material in the pu plastic,this "evaporates" out because of uv light and by heating you draw the stuf from the inner part out.

i know it sounds stupid but it really works,we use it on cars that we sell all the time,just dont over heat it......

Duncp73 said:

Try linseed oil or WD40 for your trim. WD40 worked well on mine.

Click to expand...

Interesting tip - do you just spray it on and rub it in? I have a black freebie too and the fading of the plastic trim is more noticable next to the paint.

Mines black too, know where you're coming from. Either spray on directly or on to a cloth, and rub well in.

How long does the effect last?

Not sure, only did mine a couple of weeks ago

I have made the mistake of buying one or two cars that had been smoked in. I'll never do it again. T^hat having been said I was successful in removing the smell after a little while. It isn't pleasant though...

1) A bowl of hot water with dettol in it and a rough cloth. thoroughly clean all of the interior plastics

2) Be sure not to miss the areas that are hard to reach - for example tilt the steering wheel - there may well be lots of ash there.

3) Shampoo the seats and carpets. Throw out any existing floor mats.

4) Be sure to clean the inside of windscreen, head lining and all windows, sun visor, inside of the glove box and all storage compartments

5) Do this on a day when you can leave the doors and windows open (you'll need to do this to allow the upholstery and carpet to dry out)

6) Neutradol (someone else mentioned this). I'd suggest buying four of these and placing them within the car. I also got one of the gel type air fresheners, cut it free from it's casing and squished it into the vents - this way whenever I turned the vents on I'd get a blast of fragranced air

7) Buy one of those "Dashboard Shine" aerosols - A large one and use it generously. Spray on and wipe over. It gives a nice shine and has a nice fragrance. Apply this to all of the interior plastics.

After about five months, when my 5 year old would be outside when I was washing the car and would get in - she would no longer say that it was "smelly".

ps... I'd also recommend using the dettol / hot water solution on interior door handles, steering wheel, all knobs and buttons (basically anything that would likely be touched regularly by the driver). From memory - my wife hated the smell of neutradol almost as much as the cigarette smoke - so it may be worth you checking it out first, just in case.

I hope this helps.

Not sure how you would do it but boiling vinegar masks any smell, from kippers to ciggy smoke.

I had a similar problem when I purchased a BMW X3, I found a product through detailing world, it's called carpro so2pure and it's incredible, however you must vac the car thoroughly, preferably wet vac seats, mats, carpets, headlining etc. Wash the dash, doors, windows etc using a diluted all purpose cleaner, air con filters will need changing and when all that is done and dry, just spray so2pure all over the interior and after a week or so the smell hopefully will go, my X3 had a really bad dog smell, I done all the above and the smell was approx 90% gone, an airfreshener then sorted the rest.

I'm no expert at cleaning cars but I discovered many years ago that I was much more successful if I took the seats out. Only then could I properly clean the carpets and all the wee corners. Also I could turn the seats upside down and spray some cleaner into the foam of the seats. Mind you I've tried everything with headlinings and never felt that I got them properly clean, every manufacturer seems to make them in slightly different fabrics/finishes.

Don't forget the early external plastic was grey. 2002 onwards they changed it to black until the change to colour coded paint in 2004.