Steam-clean the top?

[teacher]

Originally Posted by tqtran

Go to Sharper Image and buy a car ionizer or room ionizer, Plug it in and let it run for an hour with windows up and top up (not driving of course).

Just want to say that the Sharper Image Car Ionizer was in litigation with Consumer Reports because their product had a low rating in effectiveness. The Ionizer only seems good because of the emission of ozone, which is pleasant to smell but not effective...Sharper Image did eventually drop the lawsuit against Consumer Reports but the bottom line is: try other air freshening products...and also breathing ozone is damaging to your health in high quantities

[Ronzi]

Go to Pet Smart and get one of those dog stink remover contraptions. Looks kind of like a little hand vacuum cleaner. I think it's an ionizer, and probably costs less than anything from Sharper Image.
Didn't do much for the dog, but who knows what it might do for a convertible top.

[jwc]

Watch out for ozone machines, a restorer I know that uses them says that it "dizzolves rubber". They have a special room they fill with ozone to "de-stink" items and a portable ozone machine for location work, but say to make sure you never do it to anything with rubber in it. He also said it can have a bleaching effect on some materials (they lose color). I can't verify but this is what he told me.

[tqtran]

Originally Posted by teacher

The Ionizer only seems good because of the emission of ozone

That makes sense why it works now....I was told by a car detailer that the only thing that will get cigaret smoke out is an ozone machine.

[socratic]

I'm the original thread starter and I just want to say that I had the car detailed and when they did that, they steamcleaned the interior. I made a special mention that I wanted to get a smell out. Whatever they did, and I think it was just a standard steam clean (and I don't think they steam cleaned the top), the smell is now gone.

I should have been more clear when I made the original post. I was objecting to what I think was a smoke smell. But more correctly, I was objecting to the industrial strength DEODORIZER that a previous detailer used to mask the smoke smell. They probably used a ton of that stuff and the smell stayed in the carpeting. My detailer's steam-clean probably cleaned out or flushed out the old deodorizer.

[Brucelee]

Good tip for the future. Thanks.