So about a week ago my girlfriend and I started to notice a stink in her car, kinda smells like bad milk. We know we did spill anything in the car and very few people ride in her car so we have no idea what it is!! Are there any products out there that do a good job of getting rid of odors like this or am I going to have to get the carpets and seats cleaned?

Any help would be appreciated!

 

you can do a general cleaning, but the best way is to identify the source... can take awhile of sniffing- you gotta take a break though cause your sniffer wont be able to keep it up unless its trained-
first sniff the air vents with the fan on low to mid- then go carpets to seats.

i would also smell under the hood, trunk, etc.- strange smells can be strange things!

hardest part is often finding the problem- once you find it, then several solutions-
the first one for a smell that "just happened" would likely be something like megs odor eliminator (a spray that does a good job of eliminating)-
if you can i.d. the cause of the smell, there are other options depending on what the cause was-

 

you can buy an odor bomb, but if its something rotting in your car im not sure that will help.

odor bombs are really for cigarette smell

 

Any chance it's mildew in the duct work? I've not had to deal with it, but I guess there's stuff you can spray in the intakes.

 

Well the funny thing is when she turns the heat on and air starts circulating it goes away. Then we'll let the car sit for a while and it will be back! I sniffed around under the hood and in the trunk but didn't smell anything. She works in food service so i think she may of picked up crap on her shoes and got it in her car.

 

I know we had a camry come in one night at the shop (I work for a toyota dealership) and the RO read something like "customer states car smells bad, check and advise". Normally stuff is a little more detailed than that but when I went to get the car I understood exactly what the complaint was....I wanted to die. I pulled the cabin air filter and 3 dead mice came out with what looked like old dog food. New cabin filter and some minor cleanup and the nasty scent was gone

 

in that case i would first vacuum and shampoo the carpets-

i also change my cabin filters before they need to be changed... if you wait for normal maintenance, they can begin to smell- and as kaos_theory suggested, who knows what could be in those vents!

 

Well the smell has started to fade. So i have no idea what it was! I guess we'll see if it comes back! Lol! Thanks for all your help guys!