Brian's Blog

Eye On Detail

Whats the source of that odor in my car ?

I recently had two vehicles in the shop with unique experiences. One an Infiniti QX56 in which a child got sick and brought up the content of his stomach. The father was very thorough and did some extensive cleaning with no visible soiling remaining. However by the time the decision was made to bring the vehicle in to me there was an odor existing. What caused this odor ? It is my opinion that the acids in your stomach that works to break food down was not designed to act as a fragrant for your vehicles interior. As such it tends to leave a distinct odor that over time I  have learnt to recognize. As with any odor the first course of action is to ensure that you have removed all possible source or cause. I went about performing a very thorough search,  involving the removal of the third row seat where the child was sitting at the time. Traces was found on the seat leg , on the carpet and the seat belt. This is after the dad had done a great job of cleaning this vehicle. The vehicle was once more cleaned and a separate process of treating the vehicle for the odor was done. Below are pictures showing a part of the search.

 


 

The second vehicle in our discussion is an Acura NSX . This lady was transporting food. Potato soup I believe it was, and there was a spill. Efforts were made to clean this spill however an odor remained. The vehicle was brought in to have the interior professionally detailed. I opted to remove the seat in the area where the spill occurred to maximize my cleaning efforts.
 

After seeing this I wondered, could there be any beneath the carpet ? So I went on to explore further, below is what I found.

 

It was very interesting to see what was lying beneath this carpet. I use these two examples to show why it is important to have a professional detail your vehicles interior and exterior.
 

~ by Brian on Saturday, April 11, 2009 at 3:18am.

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