cigarette smoke in headliner

Concluding calendar week I received a telephone telephone call from a woman who's Aunt had just passed abroad and she inherited a 2005 Toyota Rav 4.  Unfortunately, her Aunt had just passed away due to lung cancer.  The new owner is keeping the auto, merely the scent and disgust inside the car were unbearable. She asked if I would be willing to tackle the situation and we went over the options.  I first suggested a thorough detail and cleaning using my heated carpet extractor and vapor steamer.   This car was about to die equally well.  I have removed smoke odors from probably a hundred cars in my 24-hour interval, only this one was by far the worst.  The photograph to a higher place shows the headliner in the Toyota and you lot can see that it is stained yellow from the tar and nicotine buildup.  The odour was enough to brand me want to run away.  When this automobile was inside of my shop, with the shop doors closed, information technology even made my shop stink inside.  It was fourth dimension to hold my breath and get to work.

Cigarette tar dripping from sunvisor

I used Meguiars All Purpose Cleaner to spray on the vehicle interior.  This is a great product that does a good job of breaking downwards nicotine and tar from the cigarette fume harm inside the motorcar.  Every bit y'all can see the tar buildup is breaking loose and is really dripping from the sunday visor.  It wasn't a peachy feeling knowing that the tar and nicotine were dripping on elevation of me, in my hair, all over myself as I was working.  What a glamorous situation this was!

Cigarette smoke tar buildup inside of a car

Cigarette smoke tar buildup.

Here is another view of the tar and nicotine dripping from the overhead lights and sunglasses holder.  Usually, I exercise not use equally much cleaner.  Simply a light mist on a microfiber towel is enough.  Only in this case, I wanted to make sure the unabridged surface was saturated plenty to break down the nicotine and tar from the cigarette smoke damage.
I first used the Meguiars All Purpose Cleaner by spraying it everywhere on the interior of the car.  This did a good chore of loosening the buildup.  I so used several, nearly 30, microfiber towels to scrub the interior.  Normally, on standard interior detail, I would utilise about ten microfiber towels.

Cigarette Smoke on headliner

Cigarette fume on the headliner.

In one case I realized that this method was not doing as good of a job that I wanted, I decided to take it a notch further.  I recalled talking to the owner of the car before I started, and said that I was very hesitant in using steam and the heated carpet extractor on this particular headliner considering the glue that holds information technology might break downward and permit the cloth headliner autumn.  The owner said that she "didn't care" and that I could practice whatever it took to get the fume aroma out.  If the steam and extraction acquired the headliner to autumn, she was OK with that because the current state was unbearable.  So, I went alee and used the vapor steamer with the castor head and agitated the headliner, then, while information technology was still hot from the steam, I used the heated carpet extractor and extracted a spot on the headliner.  Information technology did a bully job!  I was actually actually excited to see some positive results.  As y'all can run into from the photograph above, there is a nighttime and day deviation.

Car headliner cleaning

Cleaning car headliner.

This is a "during" photo of the headliner.  You tin hands see the difference in front of the vehicle headliner as compared to the back of the headliner.  It wasn't perfect, but 90 per centum better.  I could see a huge difference, and that's what kept me motivated with this project.

Dirty back seat

Dirty back seat.

Hither is a photo of the rear of the back seats of the Toyota Rav iv.  The back of the seat on the left has been cleaned.  The back of the seat on the right has non however been cleaned.  The cleaning process was used past shampooing, steaming, so extracting.

Steam cleaning car interior

Steam cleaning interior.

Afterward spraying the door panels with Meguiars All-Purpose cleaner, I used the vapor steamer to blast steam all across the inside door panels.  This bankrupt the tar and nicotine down at a literally gushing charge per unit.  I then used a microfiber towel (about three times the amount as I usually employ on a standard detail) to wipe abroad as much loose dirt, nicotine, and tar as I could.

Cigarette smoke tar dripping from door

Cigarette smoke tar.

The photo above shows the nicotine and tar that had dripped from the inside door console on to my shop flooring.  This was done in just a couple of minutes.  The corporeality of tar that was removed from this vehicle was amazing.  Seeing these big changes really did a dandy chore keeping me from giving up!

Dirty Car Cabin Filter

Muddied Cabin Filter

This is the cabin filter that was within the vehicle.  I always remove the cabin filter in these cases because when I use ozone to remove the aroma, I start the auto, then turn on the air conditioner then information technology'll re-broadcast throughout the car.  I take the old cabin filter out because whatever passes through the ductwork also passes through the cabin filter.  Accept a expect at how dirty and nasty the filter is.  Simply remember, the erstwhile owner, who is at present no longer with us, was animate the air that passed through this filter!
The last step was to run ozone through the car to sanitize and remove the terminal of the lingering cigarette smoke aroma.  I ran the ozone motorcar for approximately 5 hours, and when I was finished, I opened all of the doors on the auto to air it out for a few minutes.  I then closed up the car again, and allow it sit outside in the dominicus to get an accurate measurement of the "new" smell.  After about an hour, I opened one of the doors and poked my head inside to have a odour.  To my relief, I could no longer smell any trace of a cigarette smell!  When the possessor arrived a few hours later, she was beyond charmed.  The car didn't look perfect on the inside, as there were some traces of tar that I wasn't able to totally remove from the headliner, only as i tin can see in the pictures, there is a night and day difference.  Take a look below at the terminal photo of the headliner after the cleaning process was completed.

Toyota Rav 4 Headliner

Finished Product

Finished product!

Thanks for reading!

-Clint Allerton