Do these 5 things to make your car smell better

No matter how nice your car might look on the outside, driving to work or going out to run errands is always going to be a bit of a downer if your car’s interior doesn’t smell good. Your car’s smell doesn’t just affect your own driving experience. Do you really think you’re going to impress your date this weekend if your car still smells like the fish and chips that you ate during your lunch break earlier in the week? Nope – you’re going to look like a slob. Dousing your car with chemical air fresheners isn’t going to help and will probably only give your passenger a headache.

If you don’t take care of your car’s interior now, it isn’t just going to affect your driving pleasure and potentially put a damper on your social pursuits; it’s also going to reduce your car’s value by as much as 3 percent when you eventually decide to sell it. The good news, however, is that improving your car’s smell really isn’t that difficult. Mostly, it’s just a matter of avoiding or controlling the situations that cause unpleasant odours to occur within your car’s confined interior. Do these five things right now to make your car smell better.

Stop eating in your car

Eating isn’t the worst thing that you can do in your car if you want it to smell good – we’ll get to that one in a moment – but it certainly comes close. Sometimes, it’s really hard to avoid the temptation to eat in your car when you have a limited amount of time in which to enjoy your lunch breaks during the week. That’s especially true in the age of COVID-19, since it’s likely that you’re trying to minimise unnecessary time spent in restaurant dining rooms anyway.

The problem with eating in your car, though, is that it’s extremely difficult to prevent yourself from dropping bits of food. Your car’s sets, centre console and floor are full of nooks and crannies. Unless you’re extremely vigilant about vacuuming, it’s going to be almost impossible to prevent your car from acquiring a “stale fast food” smell if you eat lunches in it. If you don’t want to eat lunch in a restaurant dining room, find an outdoor park with a bench. Don’t eat in your car unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Quit smoking

Smoking in your car is, by far, the one thing that will most drastically affect the way your car smells. The last thing that you want is to be greeted by the smell of an ashtray every time you get into your car. It also creates a bad impression of you among your friends and dates – even if they don’t want to say so for fear of hurting your feelings. To make matters worse, smoking is one of the worst things that you can do if you want your car to maintain a high resale value. Absolutely no one – not even most smokers, ironically enough – wants to buy a used car that smells like cigarettes.

If you’ve already tried to quit smoking and weren’t successful, your next best option is to buy a vaping device from a company like V2 Cigs UK. Tens of millions of people have already used vaping to help themselves give up smoking completely – and even if you don’t quit right away, vaping at least gives you an easy way to stop smoking in your car. Vaping doesn’t leave a lingering unpleasant smell, and it’s going to make riding in your car a much nicer experience for you and your passengers.

Check the weather stripping around your sun roof, windows and trunk

If you’ve never dealt with water ingress inside your vehicle, you should thank your lucky stars. If water gets into your car, it’ll pool on the car’s floor or inside the trunk – and if that happens, mould will begin to grow. Mould smells terrible. It’s also extremely difficult to remove, and it’s even a potential health issue.

Your car’s doors, windows, sunroof and trunk all have rubber weather stripping that’s intended to insulate the interior of the vehicle and prevent water from entering. At least once a year, you should inspect all of the weather seals for tears and holes. If you find a damaged strip, you’ll need to get it replaced to prevent water from entering your car.

If your car has a sunroof, you should also inspect its drainage channels yearly. Over time, dead leaves and other debris can collect in the channels. If that happens, the channels will back up, and water will enter your car. Removal of the debris will prevent that from happening.

Stop using chemical air fresheners

If you spray your car’s interior with chemical air fresheners every time you visit the car wash, you aren’t doing yourself or your passengers any favours. Chemical air fresheners don’t remove unpleasant odours; they only mask them. Inhaling those chemicals in an enclosed space probably also isn’t the greatest idea for your health.

Instead of using chemical air fresheners, place bags of activated charcoal under your car’s seats. Activated charcoal doesn’t cover unpleasant smells; it actually absorbs the gaseous molecules that cause those smells. When you discard the activated charcoal, you’re literally removing the unpleasant odours from your car. If you use activated charcoal in addition to following the other advice in this article, you’re going to be very happy with the way your car smells.

Remove trash from your car promptly

The final thing that you should do to make your car smell as good as it can is ensure that trash never remains in your car at the end of the day. Are you the type of person who always grabs a cup of coffee on the way to work? Bring it with you – along with receipts, candy bar wrappers, tissues and whatever other trash you accumulate during the day – when you leave the car. Removing all trash promptly – and vacuuming your car’s interior at least once a week – can go a long way toward preventing unpleasant smells from developing.