Heavy odor in a car. Any suggestion

Lost Virtue said:

Ozium is incredible. Everyone should have atleast a can of this in their house at all times especially if you have animals and/or kids. It amazes me at what this shit can get rid of.

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Thanks for the tip, picked it up and tried it in my car worked great.

I want to try it on my cabin air intake, still get a little smell i think from there.

Lendarios said:

My car got flooded in Irma, just the floor. Now it has a kind of sweet swampy smell.

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I've fixed a few cars with similar issues. Carpet needs to come out because water will be trapped between the floorpan and the rubber layer in the carpet. Might feel dry on top but it will never dry out on the underside (or stop stinking).

Varies from car to car how much of a job this is, on some it's just some trim and the seats that need to come out (30 mins work) on others you need to take the dash and hvac box out (can be 4-6 hours easily). Mechanic's price will depend on this mostly if you're not DIYing it.

Once carpet is out, steamclean it or replace with a new one, or get one from a junkyard. Sometimes there's extra insulation below the carpet that's made up of shredded old clothes and is impossible to clean, replace this.

Also have the the trans (and rear end if its AWD/RWD) checked for water in the oil, if it was submerged for any length of time water might get in there and start rusting out gears.

I made the mistake of leaving a frozen ziplock bag of filet catfish in the back seat of my truck. Some of it sweated through, not a lot but enough to give my truck the worst smell in the world. I had to pull the carpet out, shampoo it numerous times and air dry it. I doused it with vinegar, used pet spray for urine, used charcoal and almost every other means. It literally took 3 weeks to remove the odor from the truck.

God damn charlie, you play for keeps.