My 04 was totaled 2 months ago. I just picked up my 2006 TSX this past week! I purchased it used, and it has a hint of stale smoke in the car. This car has about 10k miles and the owner had it for about 7 months. So far I have tried Fabreeze on the carpets, but that seems to just mask the odor for awhile. I've googled many options, but don't want to try so many gimmicks. My next step would be to have the carpet and mats shampooed and to change out the cabin filter. Anyway I have a couple of questions:

Do you guys have suggestions as to how to permanently remove this smell?
By using any type of method, can I actually remove the smell from my car?
Can this smell actually be harmful to my health?

I appreciate any help you can offer.

 

This will clean your entire air intake........Unfortunately, Im out of it.

 

What Patrick suggests will get any smell out of the A/C system for sure, but I believe you will find out that all of the porous surfaces internal to the cabin are holding a ton of the smell as well.

When I bought my last used car in the late 90's (previous owner was a smoker) Febreeze was just getting popular. I cleaned the carpets/mats with a carpet cleaner then sprayed with Febreeze. Also, the head-liner is a huge sponge for rising smoke, it took a couple of treatments of Febreeze to get it to go away permanently. You'll find the windows will have a film of tar that needs to be cleaned off as well - this is probably on the dash and all the plastics too. So basically on all surfaces of the interior of the car, clean with the appropriate cleaner, then treat any fabric (headliner) or carpets with Febreeze. Given time, the smell will wear off.

 

Check out Odor Eater.

 

I saw the commercial about Febreze it gets rid of cat and smoke smells it says on tv.

 

Clean everything and spray with some kind of odor remover.I don't know of anything
that will remove the odor instantly, it will take time for the smell to go away.

 

spray / repeat.

 

Hey Guys thanks for all the suggestions. I went ahead and had the Ozone cleaning done by a detail company. It took about an hour and had a terrible smell afterwards, but after airing it out for a couple of hours it was fine. There is absolutely no smoke odor now. Hopefully it stays that way.

Got it done by this company for 40 bucks:
http://www.keepitklean.com/odorremoval.htm

 

I was going to suggest coffee. Heard it on Car Talk (NPR).

 

Patrick, when do you expect to have this back in stock? And by reading the description, do I understand that you merely spray it in your defroster vents? Or by "upper air vents" do they mean the vents on the front of the dash?

 

try a dryer sheet under the front seats...guarantee you it will work