How to Tips to Get Rid of Gasoline Odor in Carpet

Have you ever played Good Samaritan to a forlorn figure standing by the road clutching a battered and rusty gasoline can to his chest? The good feeling you got from helping out a fellow human being lasted only as long as it took for you to realize that some of the gasoline had seeped through the rusty can onto the carpet of your car…that good feeling certainly didn’t last as long as the reek of the gas…which could be longer than the lifetime of the car…or your own lifetime depending on the reaction of your spouse when they next entered the car. Luckily, there are ways to get rid of the reek.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Steam Cleaner
• Febreze or cleaners from auto supply stores like Napa or Pep Boys
• Dry cleaning solvents if you have access to them or acetone like fingernail polish remover.
• Possibly new backing or padding for the carpet

1. It is best to remove the carpet and its padded backing from the car. You can work without moving the carpet but if the padding beneath it is contaminated you had better learn to love that smell. It will be with you forever. Removing the carpet from the vehicle also removes a lot of the danger of giving yourself a bad high through bad ventilation.

2. Gasoline is an oily solvent so simply using soap and water will not work and will actually worsen the problem. Clean the gasoline spots using dry cleaning solvents or acetone, which dissolves gasoline and then evaporates. Your carpet backing probably will not stand up to such strong cleaning measures so be prepared to just replace it.

3. When the carpet and backing is replaced, steam clean the inside of the vehicle, seats carpet, dash and all with a strong deodorizing cleanser like Febreze. After you are done, leave the windows up for an hour and then let vehicle air out. You may need to repeat this last step. :(

4. If money is not an problem call a place that does auto cleaning and let them do it the job. Be certain, however, you know that their procedure for this particular problem is similar to what is described in this article. THAT is what you want to pay for…NOT a simple vacuuming and a deodorizer that hangs from your rear view mirror. That will definitely NOT do the job.

Tips & Warnings

• Be sure to test all solvents and cleansers on a part of the carpet not in plain view for color fastness before you use them.
• Be sure to keep windows down and a fan blowing for ventilation when working inside of the car.

[momofour]

on 9/13/2008 Great tips! I thought, maybe, Jeff Foxworthy had taken to writing eHow articles with this title. I was thinking carpet in the house and thought the beginning line would be "If you have gasoline stains from your Harley Davidson Fatboy on your living room carpet....ya might be a redneck!"