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Interior car smell

Vanderstel

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Location
Escondido, CA
67 Satellite, every time I open the door, I get a wiff of old car smell, and I love it. What am I smelling?

I get nothing memorable from my 2013 T&C or my 01 Dodge 1500.
 
What you’re smelling is 55 years of cigarette smoke, farts, mildew, skin flakes, sweat, food and drink spills, vomit, possibly sex juices, bad breath and perfume/cologne to start.
 
I remember buying my car and opening the door, and me and my buddy saying "yep smells like a Chrysler"...
I've discovered that the seam sealers they used under the carpet, and the vinyls in the interior pieces seem to be the strongest sources of the "Chrysler smell"!
GM and Fords have their own different scents.
 
What you’re smelling is 55 years of cigarette smoke, farts, mildew, skin flakes, sweat, food and drink spills, vomit, possibly sex juices, bad breath and perfume/cologne to start.
If they would make a candle called ....
Old Car Smell.
 
And the funny thing is the carpets have been replaced, I put in new seat buns, the seat covers have been replaced too, but yet smell is still there. As beanhead suggested it must be in the seam sealers or something used in manufacture, because what I'm getting is not unique to my car. Time to go sit in another old Mopar..
 
A freshly restored heater box and dash made a Big difference when I did mine. Years of all that Yumminess RC mentioned was washed away.
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Scott Kilmer has a video on YouTube of a ozone generator that is very powerful and will kill most all the microbes that makes your interior stink.
 
A freshly restored heater box and dash made a Big difference when I did mine. Years of all that Yumminess RC mentioned was washed away.
View attachment 1388609
I've had the same experience. My wife has a hypersensitive sense of smell (seems to be a package deal with her predisposition to migraine headaches.) I had restored A/C systems in my 1960 Chrysler 300F and GTX number 3, and she had no problems with the odor of either car's interior. To me, they both had the scent of a new vintage 1960s Mopar (lots of personal experience back in the day.) She refused to set foot in my non A/C GTXs because of the musty smell. The A/C in my current car is completely restored and functional, but the GTX only saw 1000 miles in the last 28 years, so it has the old smell. It diminished when I ran the A/C on the last sunny day this fall. I plan on running the wheels off it next summer, curious to see if I can get it to pass her test.
 
Many of the smells are absorbed into the roof insulation above the headliner. It’s difficult to stop the odor without replacing both.
Ron
 
If you want to reduce or maybe eliminate the odor try an ozone generator. Probably rent one. Maybe run your blower for a while with generator running.
 
If you want to reduce or maybe eliminate the odor try an ozone generator. Probably rent one. Maybe run your blower for a while with generator running.

I have one like this that works quite well. I think I found it in a local parts store.

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I don't want lose that old car smell in mine, that is one more thing that makes them different.
 
that 'jute insulation'
used under the carpets, or the rear divider/bulkhead behind the back seat
between the firewall & trunk &/or package tray 'on mine anyway'
it had black nylon-ish/thin carpet glued down in the trunk too,
(sure some smells from that) that is still org. to the car
I noticed it really after replacing it (the jute) in my 68 RR with 67k miles

I do also have 'new Scat-Procar Elite-1100L bucket seats' too,
the foam & leather has a distinct smell
the seat belts had a pungent type mold/sweaty type smell to them,
I used hydrogen-peroxide to clean them, it helps/neutralizes orders too

Car was always in a warm dry-ish climate, car was org. from Rio Linda
(a suburb of Sacramento) the guy was a smoker, like most men of that era
surprisingly no real smoke smell, even in the org. headliner
I sprayed most of the interior down with 'Fabreeze Fabric'
when I 1st got it home & started cleaning it
it had no mold, especially in the carpets, still has the org. black loop carpets too
no mice nests/droppings, that you find in a ton of them
a old guy/a carpenter, drove it for about 25 years, his daily driver,
it was mostly left it outside, then later was parked in a garage
& only taken out occasionally, by his daughter,
till I bought it in Dec. 2005, been garaged ever since too
(I did find almost a keg of rusty #16d box nails in the quarters/sides,
that had a distinct smell too
)
 
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