The evils of smoking...

[Kieran]

Urgh. Nearly all my Galants have been owned by a smoker at some point in their lives. Each of them has suffered with vile deposits of ash, tar and nicotine stains untill I've attacked the foul stuff. Without going off on one about smoking, I think the smell of a 'smoker' car is one of the worst smells there is!

My GLSi is 17 years old and has one previous owner. Yes, the previous owner bought the car new. And then he smoked in it!


So, without further ado, this weekend I set out to banish the smell from my new purchase. I've spent the ENTIRE weekend removing, scrubbing, steam cleaning, wiping and spraying every surface in the car - I think I've got it beat but we shall see!

Here's a few 'Before' shots for you....

This is the overhead console - I never knew Mitsubishi fitted BROWN lights!!



One of the grab handles....


The stereo. The original owner eschewed the 'Ash Wood' effect facia in favour of the 'Ash Tray' effect!!


You get the general idea, right? The car hummed. Every plastic surface had a coating of dust and fag ash, every upholstered surface (carpets, seats, headliing, door trims) had ingrained nicotine. It was truly horrible.

This picture though, illustrates the nastyness of smoking in a more stark fashion. Over the rear view mirror was a an extra wide overlay mirror. This sat over the existing mirror and was held to it by a couple of elasticated straps. I took this overlay off and here's the result. Where the elastic straps had sat, the plastic had been spared the nastyness...




So, the cleanup began. Or rather it didn't. Most of Saturday was spend dismantling the interior. No, not just removing the seats - all of it, bar the dashboard and the door cards. Every other bit of trim came out - Carpets, headlining, trim panels, boot panels..... the lot!!




With the interior out, I could wipe clean the chassis (you'd be surprised how much tar and smoke crap finds its way here!) and then begin the process of scrubbing, steaming, shampooing, steaming, scrubbing, steaming, wiping, shampooing........................................ ...............

Given the inclement weather on Saturday, coupled with Alex going out shopping meant that the spare room became KieranCorp decontamination area #1!!

Carpet before:



And after:



The headlining stank. No, really. Within 30mins of bringing it into the house, the spare room also smelt like an old smelly car too! This picture shows why.... This is a piece of white kitchen paper. The headlining had been sprayed with cleaner, scrubbed, steamed to lift the muck out of the fibres and then wiped. I then passed over it with this piece of kitchen paper to see how much more grot remained.....


The headling took a while, funnily enough.... Makes you wonder what the previous owner's lungs must look like!!

Anyhow.... Here's a few pictures as the car went back together. No official 'After' pictures just yet as although the car is back together, I still have things to do, such as clean the glass - And I haven't even started the exterior of the car yet!! Oh and as per bloody usual my camera vampired its batteries and I haven't any spares!

Oh look! it's like a new overhead console!!


The seats - They're grey and have a good velour pile to them!


And finally a shot as the interior was being reconstructed. Looks better already!



So yeah, that was my weekend!! Worth it though - The interior now looks and smells like a GLS should!

[KHK]

looks terrible with ash and stains everywhere

[shaun1978]

Well done keiran , it really is nasty.... I wont even let a smoker in my car, not even family , cos even though they havent smoked in it , i can still smell it for ages...

[Physician]

Aha! So THAT'S the reason for the ginger locks ...... not DNA then!

[bradc]

Has anyone ever asked you about OCD Kieran?

I'm of the humble opinion we should just shoot smokers, or treat it like masterbation, not something you do in public or around anyone else!

(just infront of webcams lol)

[pitslayer]

you call that carpet clean in the bottom pic????? look at it, thats not clean i can see loads of bits on that carpet, why if you saw my interior you`d.... errr.....actually no you dont need to see my interior, because its orsumly clean......honest......not full of petrol reciepts, the rear isnt littered with ferrari Vpower model cars, theres floor mats in it which are clean, and of course my leather interior doesnt look like its been sat in a barn for 6 months

Kieran, im sure you will know the answer to this, but how the hell do you clean up the original shagpile legnum floor mats, 2 days ive been on them with the wet vac and multiple cleaners and they still wont clean up!!.....soon it will carpet Dye time rr

[Paul Beazer]

OCD Deffo!

[HMG1K]

You got that car then..? On Auto Trader...?!

Awww the wonders of taking car seats out in the days of no wiring and airbags to worry about!

I remember doing this same cleaning operation when I took over my uncle's 1980 Sigma and that was filthy with him being a smoker... I know exactly what it's like with this... Bet the car smells like you've given it a wash with Fabreze!

Nice work!

[Kieran]

Kieran, im sure you will know the answer to this, but how the hell do you clean up the original shagpile legnum floor mats, 2 days ive been on them with the wet vac and multiple cleaners and they still wont clean up!!.....soon it will carpet Dye time rr

Kyle - Try this thread:

http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11597

If that don't work, then I can recommend a steam cleaning. I use one designed for stripping wall paper - I just bought the extra tool set which has a selection of steam wands. AutoGlym interior shampoo is good stuff. Spray on, rub in, steam it, when wipe off. Repeat untill clean.

[Kieran]

You got that car then..? On Auto Trader...?!

Yep! See here:

http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30897

[White Lightning]

Excellent work Kieran. Ignore the OCD comments, these lot are just jealous as they wished their cars were this clean

I want to take the seats out of mine at some point this summer but haven't looked into how to do it yet!

[White Lightning]

just infront of webcams lol)

[pitslayer]

taking the seats out is relativly easy job. just nuts and bolts on the front, making sure you disconnect the little wire under the drivers seat(sips or seatbelt light cant remember) rear seats. basically the same.

ive got to clean all mine up, only done the boot floor since ive had her. every time i get around to doing it, i notice the car is dirty and must be cleaned.....

cheers for that thread Kieran, will read through it because my next port of call, was our karcher steam pressure washer with lots of what ever chemical is in there, at about 30000 degrees c

[ANTHONY]

i'm impresed but then we have come to expect this rearly

[miller]

Now thats dedication K, it will now be even mintier than when you bought it. Good job!


Mike

[Kieran]

i'm impresed but then we have come to expect this rearly

You wait untill I break out the polisher! Full frontal polishing action abound!

[ritch_w]

what a transformation! looks like it will be quite some transformation K, do u have any "before" pics of the whole car to highlight the transformation?

whats the story behind the car? age, mileage, history etc etc ?

[Kieran]

what a transformation! looks like it will be quite some transformation K, do u have any "before" pics of the whole car to highlight the transformation?

whats the story behind the car? age, mileage, history etc etc ?

I certainly do have 'before' pics of the rest of the car, they'll be put up when I've tackled the exterior (which won't be too long, now that my new car cleaning potions have arrived!).

Story? In a nutshell, we've been looking for a runabout as the Golf is not exactly the last word in a nice drive. Philip (HMG1K) spotted this on on Autotrader and it was local.

Turned up and it was a 1 owner car with 52k on the clock. It drove lovely but had a nasty starting & running problem. I suspected was the capacitors in the ECU, but left it with the garage. After a couple of frustrating weeks the garage called me and said they didn't really know what to do, so we agreed on a cash price and I drove the car away. Limped it back to mine okay, yanked the ECU and sure enough 2 capactiors had dribbled. A very nice man on these forums( )offered to fix the problems, so off it went. I should get the ECU back in the next day or two and all being well that should be job done.

The car is in excellent shape for its age - I've seen worse 8Gs! And the icing on the cake was the other night -There's a storage tray under the passenger seat on these cars - In mine were the original handbooks and the service history. The previous owner took it to a Mitsubishi dealership every six months without fail from 1990 right up to the end of 2003!! - Since then the car's only done another 7000 miles, but it's obviously been serviced since even though the book's not been stamped - the oil still looks new! There's so many service stamps that the dealer has had to staple extra pages into the service book!! And not only that, the guy also maintained his 6 year bodywork anti-corrosion warranty too! Every single bodywork inspection interval was done and stamped too!

So yeah, I think it's a good'un and it'll break cover at Japfest this year!

[KiwiTT]

I simply placed an airfreshener in the ash tray closed the draw and left it there.

[Kieran]

I simply placed an airfreshener in the ash tray closed the draw and left it there.

Air freshners don't remove dirt Richard! This car was a biohazard on wheels!