Table of Contents
How Do You Get Smoke Smell Out of a Car?
There are three main ways that you can go about removing cigarette smoke from your car. There are natural products like coffee beans and orange peel slices that are meant to mask the smell. There are also chemicals that can be sprayed and are designed to remove smells including smoke from the car. And then there is a device called an ozone generator that is designed to produce ozone molecules that actively break down the oxygen molecules inside of your car. I’ll explain the differences between the three main types below.
What Are Natural Ways to Get Rid of Smoke Smell In a Car?
There are some natural ways of getting rid of smoke smells in a car but after doing a lot of research they don’t seem to be that effective at removing smoke smells in the long run. It seems that they will do a good job of masking smoke smells but after removing the home remedy or natural odor reducer the smoke smell will return.
Natural methods of removing smells from your car include using apple slices and orange peels to make your car smell like apples or oranges. Coffee beans are also good at masking smells and soaking up some smoke smell into the coffee beans. If you are a regular coffee drinker you may want to go this route.
Dryer sheets can also be rubbed on the surfaces of your car to apply the dryer sheet scent to them. Some people have also used cat litter in a bowl to help soak up smoke smells and make their cars smell fresh (you can use scented or unscented cat litter).
Just know that if you want to attempt using natural ways to get rid of smoke smells from your car that the smoke smell will likely return over the next few days. But you could still attempt using a natural method of removing smoke smell from your car before proceeding with chemicals and ozone generators to see if going the natural route will work for you.
What Sprays or Chemicals Can I Use to Remove Smoke Smell From a Car?
To actually remove smoke smells from your car you may need to resort to using chemicals to remove the smoke smell from your car. Most people don’t want to resort to using chemicals to clean their car but if the smoke smell is embedded into the interior of the car it may take using chemicals or an ozone generator to completely remove.
Chemicals that could be used to get rid of smoke smells in a car include things like air fresheners, mist spray odor bombs, carpet cleaners, Febreeze (link to Amazon.com), and odor eliminator sprays. After doing extensive research online some people have said that they’ve had some luck with removing smoke smell from their cars by using an odor eliminator spray to spray down their entire car.
So it may be worth giving it a shot as an odor eliminator and carpet cleaner spray can be picked up for less than $10-$20. 
1. Spray Carpets and Floor Mats
The carpets and floor mats of your car will absorb smoke over time and will need to be sprayed and cleaned. It’s a good idea to spray a carpet cleaner or odor remover onto your car carpets and then use a brush to make sure that it soaks into the carpet. Then use a shop vac to remove any excess which will also allow the carpets to dry faster.
If your floor mats are fabric you’d want to use the same process on them as outlined above. If you have rubber floor mats you can apply odor reducer and then just use a rag to make sure it gets applied to all surfaces of the floor mat.
2. Spray Headliner
One area that will definitely absorb smoke in a car is the headliner. To remove smoke smell from your headliner you’d want to use an odor reducer spray that is safe to use on fabric. Make sure that you test the spray on an inconspicuous area before applying it to your whole headliner to ensure it won’t damage the color of the fabric.
Make sure that you spray the whole headliner but don’t apply so much spray that the headliner gets wet, it should be damp but not wet.
3. Spray Dash and Center Console
You’d also want to make sure that you try to remove any smoke smell from your center console and dash. Even though your center console and dash are typically plastic, plastics can style absorb cigarette smoke over time.
Spray an odor eliminator onto the surface of your dash and use a clean rag or microfiber towel to rub it all over the surface of your dash. You’d then want to repeat that process on the center console and armrest if you have one.
4. Spray Seats/ Use Leather Cleaner
Fabric car seats can definitely absorb smoke over time which is why you’d want to make sure that you spray them down with an odor eliminator or have your car seats cleaned. Make sure that your car seats aren’t wet to the touch when you get done. Use a shop vac or leave your car in the sun to dry out your car seats faster.
Leather car seats can also absorb cigarette smoke smell as well. If you have leather seats you would want to use a leather seat cleaner to rub down your seats to clean them and try to remove any smoke smell embedded in them. I usually use a leather cleaner and a microfiber towel to clean my leather seats.
5. Spray Doors and Plastics Including Near Rear Window
Another area that you don’t want to forget cleaning when attempting to remove smoke smell from your car is the door panels and plastics around your car. With most cars they will use plastics on the door panels and over the pillars surrounding the windows of the car. Use an odor reducer and a microfiber towel or clean rag to wipe down the plastics in your car making sure to get them all.
6. Clean Windows
Car windows can also develop a smoke haze on them if the car is smoked in for long enough. Use a glass cleaner to clean the inside of your front and back windshield as well as all of the insides of the windows on your doors. Make sure that you don’t leave streaks on your windows when you are done wiping them down.
What’s the Best and Most Effective Way to Get Rid of Smoke Smells in a Car?
After doing a bit of research I found that the best and most effective way to remove smoke smells from a car is by using an ozone generator. That’s because ozone generators remove smoke smells by breaking the smoke smell at the molecular level.
Ozone generators work by charging oxygen molecules (O2) by turning them into ozone molecules (O3). Ozone molecules are an oxidizing gas that is unstable and will eventually break back down to oxygen molecules again. When these ozone molecules break back down into oxygen they are left with no smell effectively removing any smoke smell from the inside of your car.
Ozone generators are the most expensive option out of the three main ways to tackle getting rid of smoke smells in a car but is by far the most effective way. You don’t need to get the best ozone generator you just need to get one that works.
The Mammoth Ozone Generator (link to Amazon.com) pictured above is one of the cheapest models and should be able to get the job done. To learn more about why most other methods to remove smoke from a car don’t work and why ozone generators
One thing to keep in mind with ozone generators is that you do not want to breathe in ozone molecules as they can damage your lungs. When using an ozone generator machine you want to plug it in using an extension cord located outside of the vehicle, that way you can unplug the machine and turn it off without having to breathe in ozone molecules. To learn more about how to properly use ozone generators check out the video below.
How Long Does Smoke Smell Last in a Car?
When a car has been smoked in for a long time the smoke smell can last for years unless something is done to remove the smoke smell. Having someone smoke a cigarette or cigar in your car once isn’t likely to make your car smell like smoke forever and the smoke smell will typically only last a day or so. But if you regularly smoke in your car or recently purchased a car that was regularly smoked in there is no easy way to remove the smoke smell.
You can try masking the smell with air fresheners and odor eliminators but really the only effective way to remove smoke smell from cars is with an ozone generator machine that breaks down the smelly oxygen molecules inside of the car.
What is the Best Way to Remove Smoke Smell In A Car?
The best way to remove smoke smell in a car is by using an ozone generator to remove the smoke smell. You can try covering up smoke smells by using odor eliminators and air fresheners but really the best and most effective way to remove smoke smells is by using an ozone generator to break down the smelly oxygen molecules creating the smoke smell.
What’s the Fastest Way to Get Rid of Cigarette Smell In a Car?
The fastest way to get rid of cigarette smell in a car is by masking the cigarette smoke with an air freshener or an odor eliminator spray. You can use a spray like febreeze or any other odor eliminator spray to spray down the fabrics in your car including the floorboard carpets, your headliner, and your seats if they are cloth.
Go easy on applying any spray to your headliner and cloth seats because you don’t want them to stain which can happen if you spray too much on one area. If you spray too much on one area you’d want to wipe away the excess with a dry cloth.
If the odor eliminator you chose is scented you can expect the scented smell to cover up the smoke smell for a few days.
But expect the smoke smell to come back in a day or so as you are really just masking the smoke smell and not really removing it. To entirely remove smoke smell from your car you would want to use an ozone generator to oxidize the smoke smell from all fabrics inside of the car.
Will Cigarette Smell Go Away In a Car?
Cigarette smoke typically go away once it’s been embedded in the fabrics of a car which in most cars include the floorboard carpets and headliner. You can try airing out the car or using an odor bomb to try to remove the smell but once cigarette smoke is in the fabrics of a car it’s tough to remove. That’s why I recommend using an ozone generator to remove cigarette smoke smells as it breaks down the cigarette smell down at the molecular level.
How Do I Make My Car Smell Like New?
Like I mentioned above there a few procedures that you can take to make your car smell like new but how long they last will vary widely. The temporary solutions are to use an air freshener that is scented with a new car smell and that will effectively cover up any smells inside of the car while the air freshener new. But with any air freshener, it will lose it’s effectiveness over time and need to be replaced. 
