<p>We all know that CC is better than Google when searching for a quick answer to something so here goes –</p>
<p>My son left a package of raw chicken in his car after a trip to the supermarket. The bag slid under the seat and he forgot about it once he got inside. He hasn’t used the car for 3 days and it has been sitting outdoors in the sun. You can imagine the stench that hit him when he opened the car door this morning!</p>
<p>One good thing is that his car doesn’t have carpet. It’s a Honda Element with that rubberized flooring so none of the fluids from the chicken soaked into anything. But the smell has permeated the seats and headliner since the car was closed up.</p>
<p>Febreeze isn’t going to make a dent in the smell. Does he need to take it to a pro for cleaning or can he get the smell out with charcoal or vinegar or something like that? What about the stuff they use to remove pet urine odor?</p>
<p>There’s a Seinfeld episode about this that was right on the money. I’ve never seen a terrible smell in a car go away completely. Lessen with time, yes. Can you leave the doors open in a covered outdoor location for a few weeks?</p>
<p>Years ago we inherited a car that had a trully digusting smell. We had the car detailed including removal of all seat covers, padding and carpet. The car smelled ok for about 24 hours but that darn smell came right back. We sold the car for less than half the value because no one would buy it with that smell.</p>
<p>I spent days applying lysol to the leather just to kill whatever the smell was…the detailing was the last resort.</p>
<p>Park the car in sunlight so it’ll warm up during the day.
Roll up the windows tightly.
Take a glass of ammonia (like 8 oz.) and leave it in the car all day</p>
<p>Pour the glass out, roll the windows down to remove the smell and see how it is. It may take a couple of days of good sun on the car.</p>
<p>I had a similar thing happen about 20 years ago, a POUND of BUTTER slid under the seat and melted in July in inland Northern California. Barf Mobile, it smelled so nasty.</p>
<p>In our case we did have carpet, we tried everything we could think of (pre-internet) and every time it got warm, the smell came back, though not as bad as before. Since you don’t have carpet, maybe you will be able to get rid of it.</p>
<p>I thought I read somewhere that charcoal would absorb a bad odor. What if you dropped some charcoal into buckets and placed them around the car. Worth a try.</p>
<p>This is mostly used for pet odors but works for all kinds of odors. We use the laundry additive version for sweaty tech shirts and it works like a charm :)</p>
<p>We had an Olds Cutlass we got from an old lady who only drove on Sundays (honest, it only had 8000 miles on it when we bought it and it was 10 years old). It smelled, well let’s just say, like a hospital. It never went away.</p>
<p>My s left his lunch containers in his car this summer for several days. What a smell!!! He used febreeze and left the windows open and it did clear out the smell. Good luck!</p>
<p>Open boxes of baking soda! (I have also heard that charcoal works) You just need a way to keep the open box from tipping over. We ended up buying a whole bunch of the Arm and Hammer discs and putting those in the vehicle. I wonder if you can sprinkle the baking soda or even one of those pet stain remover powders for carpets onto the seats and then vacuum it up.</p>
<p>Do you have an air ozonator? Run it inside the car for a few hours to kill any stench causing bacteria and destroy volatile organic compounds produced by it. Charcoal and soda suggestions are good (just make sure that charcoal is NOT presoaked with lighter fluid!!!).</p>
<p>We had a fire once and one of the firemen told me about a product that he said worked.
It took me a while to find it. I had to go to a warehouse to buy it. Anyway it comes in a little tub like a margarine container. It is kind of like an light colored opaque jello. You open it up upside down and use the lid for the “plate”. I know BB&B has a similar product, but I don’t think it is a strong. An boy it did work, pulled the odor out of everything, upholstery, wood, the walls, the beds, etc. I am sure if you poke around the internet you can find it. It was fairly expensive, about $25.00 per container and I got 3 of them. The man that sold it to me said I didn’t need that many, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. He said they used it in large commercial places after fires and other sever odor causing problems, like floods.</p>