Moth Balls

[H.A.D]

I have a car coming in tomorrow that has a mothball smell in the interior. They bought it from a used dealership that cover the smell. I plan on hot water extraction on the carpet, clean all hard surfaces and clean headliner. Then if need be dakota bomb. Anybody deal with mothball smell removal? Have any info or advice. Thanks.

[Goin Rogue]

Might need them to change the cabin air filter too.

[JSFM35X]

All of the above and fresh air.

[Stokdgs]

If you really want to remove the odor completely, you need to find the exact Source/s of the odor...

If there were mothballs in the car, where exactly were they ???

I have been able to successfully remove other Detailer (?) induced odors, cover up odors, etc., by first if possible finding the source of where it started, , removing that odor there or all the places, and then completely steaming and extracting the entire vehicle to remove the Other Odor, that the idiot was too lazy to remove, and just took the easy way out..

For example, I got a 2003 BMW M5 that had an odor that made the new owner so Sick, he drove it home and parked it for over a year in his garage; he could not deal with the cover up smell..

I found the strongest part of the car where the stupid bomb was placed, really steamed, extracted a few times, and then went over the entire vehicle, every square inch, and removed the original Odor, Nicotine, from every square inch of the car..

I was removing brown nicotine as seen on my white towels, from the entire car, worse on the driver side, driver side glass, sun shade, headliner, and followed a brown nicotine trail all the way to the driver side back seat areas where again, a lot of brown stuff came off of the headliner and the inside back glass..

Once it was done, there was nothing but a clean smell, no added smells, and the owner was ecstatic..

What we all need to know is that some odors are really bad for some people and anytime you try to cover up the original source of the odor to begin with, you are just compounding the problem and not really getting the source of the odor out.. And the Client will not be happy and this odor may have a health issue for him and his family later..

Good luck with this,
Dan F

[H.A.D]

The owner dropped off the car and said they tried to shampoo it, but it did nothing. So I started from the front and made my way to the back, smelling like a hound dog. Put down the center armrest in the back seat, then opened the access to the trunk, and the smell of mothballs hit me like a freight train! Long story short, I found 21 mothballs in with the spare tire. The spare still smells! Told the owner to leave the tire out a few weeks if that was possible, to air it out. Oh, it was a 1999 Mazda Millenia with only 20000 on it. Thanks for the info.

[Stokdgs]

H.A.D. --
Great job !!!!
21mothballs ! Wow !!

What were they thinking ???

If the odor permeated into the interior long enough to leave something there, it may never just air out...

Did you get to complete the Interior Detail or just give it back to them minus that nasty bomb in the trunk ???

Again, great job here !! This is what a real Detailer does every day..
Dan F

[H.A.D]

Stokdgs, thanks! I needed to take out the rear seat, with the back of it making up part of the trunk, to extract it. So that ate up some time. Extracted the carpet, wiped down hard surfaces and cleaned seats. They said it was 1000 times better. That was the first time I used a bomb, and didn`t like it. But the smell was so strong, felt like I needed to. Have a car coming in Monday, smoker lease return. I have 3 hours, plan on extracting seats,seatbelts and carpet. So for the headliner what`s the best way to attack it? Thanks Sean