Vomit vs Pureluxe

HansGruber

New Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2024
Messages
9
Reaction score
6
Location
Bay Area, CA
Hi. My kid got car sick in the backseat and it's a mess. Aside from donning a hazmat suit for the initial clean-up, does anyone have advice as to how best mitigate a lifetime of horrendous odor? I can steam clean the carpet at the floor, but the perforated PurLuxe concerns me. I'm not sure what methods are best for that material.
Thanks
 
Hi. My kid got car sick in the backseat and it's a mess. Aside from donning a hazmat suit for the initial clean-up, does anyone have advice as to how best mitigate a lifetime of horrendous odor? I can steam clean the carpet at the floor, but the perforated PurLuxe concerns me. I'm not sure what methods are best for that material.
Thanks
I'd seek the advice of a professional detailer
 
Yeah, have been striking out so far with professional help. The couple local guys I've used before can't get me in for a couple days and I understand time is of the essence. Not surprising, their groans were both audible when I described the situation. So looks like I'll be on my own here for phase one.
 
A couple of years ago we were driving from Washington to Arizona and had our dogs in the back seat of our Ram Power Wagon. The back seat was leather with millions of tiny holes to match the front seats which had cooling. We drove through a Starbucks and my wife decided to try a "Puppychino" for the dogs, which is just whip cream in a cup. The dogs loved it, but unbeknownst to us, our Lab is lactose intolerant. About an hour later it had diarrhea all over the back seat. It was a nightmare.

We did immediate cleaning with various leather cleaners from O'Reilly auto parts, but the truck still reeked. We couldn't use the enzymatic cleaners because they apparently will damage leather. We finished the drive with windows cracked and noses plugged, and when we got to Phoenix I took the truck to a highly rated detail shop. I can't remember exactly what I paid but it was around $600.

The special cleaning from the detail company seemed to have worked until the first time the truck was parked in sun for a couple of hours. At that point the diarrhea stench returned mixed in with all the cleaning smells. My wife then spent about 20 hours with soft bristle brushes cleaning all the small holes. That removed 99% of of the smell. But the remaining 1% was unpleasant enough that I had reached the point where I was going to buy a new rear seat. For other reasons though we then decided to just trade in the truck.

Hopefully you have better luck than we did.
 
Anyone remember the Seinfeld episode with the car suffering from someone’s hideous body odor? They couldn’t get it out. One of the funniest episodes for car people.
 
I think ASAP get a suction vacuum in there to try to physically remove as much as possible, even before spraying anything on it. Once you spray anything, things will seep further down.
 
A couple of years ago we were driving from Washington to Arizona and had our dogs in the back seat of our Ram Power Wagon. The back seat was leather with millions of tiny holes to match the front seats which had cooling. We drove through a Starbucks and my wife decided to try a "Puppychino" for the dogs, which is just whip cream in a cup. The dogs loved it, but unbeknownst to us, our Lab is lactose intolerant. About an hour later it had diarrhea all over the back seat. It was a nightmare.

We did immediate cleaning with various leather cleaners from O'Reilly auto parts, but the truck still reeked. We couldn't use the enzymatic cleaners because they apparently will damage leather. We finished the drive with windows cracked and noses plugged, and when we got to Phoenix I took the truck to a highly rated detail shop. I can't remember exactly what I paid but it was around $600.

The special cleaning from the detail company seemed to have worked until the first time the truck was parked in sun for a couple of hours. At that point the diarrhea stench returned mixed in with all the cleaning smells. My wife then spent about 20 hours with soft bristle brushes cleaning all the small holes. That removed 99% of of the smell. But the remaining 1% was unpleasant enough that I had reached the point where I was going to buy a new rear seat. For other reasons though we then decided to just trade in the truck.

Hopefully you have better luck than we did.
Hahaha. Yeah, similarly when I was kid, a gallon of milk spilled on the back seats in the Dodge Caravan. The bouquet of old cheese and feet was overwhelming when the temperature got over 70. Like yours, it was traded in. The moral of the story: never buy a car with the windows down.
 
Back
Top