Interior Smells

P

PeterZRH

Well-Known Member
Hi,

Any good tips (other than seat covers) to prevent the "old car" smell from getting on my clothes? The wife objects personally I like it.

I have leather seat and no matter how clean, I still smell of oil leather, old paper and musty wool.

Have already tried gallons of Fabreeze on the carpets....
 
Peter

I like it too :D My wife often comments how I smell of 'old car' if I've been driving for a while. Fortunately she has no objections to it. Personally I would note her comments and do nothing about it. I like the way my car smells and don't intend doing anything about it, other than perhaps further enhancing the way it smells :D

Dave
 
I was thinking of taking up smoking Woodbines and spilling some Courage Best to complete that period aroma. Funny how things like that fade into history.

The 1960s-70s had a definite whiff about them...
 
Actually this may mark me out as a bit of a weirdo but my favourite P6 seat is boxpleat nylon. These clean brilliantly (apart from an entire Cornish pasty's worth of crumbs entombed in the pleating).

My buckskin ones in my last car were perfect and the facings almost snow white through fading....
 
I too have the "old car smell" - however after rebuilding and repainting my heater inside and out, I have swapped the old smell for "warm paint" smell. It is fading though, slowly...
 
The smell ! Surely one of the pleasures of ownership of an old car . If the colour of the 70's is beige , then the smell of the 70's is opening the musty cavity that is the boot of a Rover P6 !
:D
 
funny how p6s seem to smell the same--even my ratty rover as modified a it is smells the same as mates 2000 TC only difference is 5 years between them-and when people get in mine-first thing they comment on is the old car smell
 
All mine smell slightly different, so much so that I reckon I could tell them apart blindfolded. Two cars have leather seats (ETR and BPH), one of which always has a faint yet not unpleasant whiff of burnt engine oil. WXC smells of bubblegum thanks to the "new car" air freshener and DDF has a wonderful admixture of fake leather scent and a very slight, pleasantly musty whiff.
 
I noticed the old car smell on my clothes yesterday as well! I spent most of the day working on the car and then driving it about (as I'd got it just two days before), but it's very nostalgic for me. My father owned an MGB when I was younger and they have a similar smell, although my Rover smells a little more up-market. ;)

I'd be interested to find a way to get rid of the old car smell, but I wouldn't resort to that any time soon. Maybe further down the line, but not yet. :p
 
I remember reading on here a while ago that apparently most of the smell emanates from the carpets and soundproofing. Maybe someone who has fitted new carpets and underlay can confirm ?
 
pat180269 said:
I remember reading on here a while ago that apparently most of the smell emanates from the carpets and soundproofing. Maybe someone who has fitted new carpets and underlay can confirm ?
Click to expand...

This is correct. Only the old leather seat facings in my car still emit that "old leather smell", which is not bad at all.
If you also retrim the interior with new materials, it won't smell like an old Rover anymore.
 
I used the original underlay beneath new carpets, which are of some sort of manmade muck, not wool. I can attest that the fusty old english car smell is now gone. If however I lift the rear seat squab out and sniff in the box section where these cars like to rust, I can still smell that old pong, but it doesn't pervade the interior.
 
My wife likes me coming in smelling of Rover, especially when I've been working on one. I normally end up having to exert even more energy. :oops:
 
Must admit that I have never noticed a smell coming from my Rover, nor has anyone ever commented. I can detect an aroma when I look inside Rovers with a leather interior. I imagine if a car is not used very often, then it would more likely smell.

Ron.
 
My old V8 had sweaty carb seals and oil elsewhere in the engine bay. Not a lot, that is. But the engine heat caused vaporisation coming through into the passenger compartment through the various grommets and cracks. Even through the heater box, which was in a poor state. Often I would notice "traffic" film on the inside of the windscreen, which had to be cleaned regularly. The car had been like that when put away 11 years before I got it, and it didn't really smell nice.

A familiar phenomenon from the heater on old VWs, whose engines were prone to pushrod seal leaks allowing the cooling air to draw with it am amount of oil fumes into the car.
 
Tor said:
A familiar phenomenon from the heater on old VWs, whose engines were prone to pushrod seal leaks allowing the cooling air to draw with it am amount of oil fumes into the car.
Click to expand...

Yup big +1 on that :(
 
I can report that my heater has finally baked off all its paint fumes and so normal service of old car smell has been resumed in the P6.

I like my series 2 landrover - it always smells of old canvas, EP90 and engine oil after a run, which reminds me of visiting Tank museums and the like as a kid :D
 
There are a few overt P6 smells:

1) Leather. Depending on the colour of the seats and the age of the car they can all smell very different. My 1964 2000 smells exactly like a shoe shop - it must have been the process used on the hide. Late 1960's car have that 'bottle it' Rover smell that you could sell to like minded Roverheads if you could do it. This is, I suspect due to who supplied the leather. There was obviously more than one supplier etc.

2) The smell of death - rotting underlay from water getting in courtesy of developing or rampant rot. Once it's in a car it's difficult to move it, hence why a lot of really good looking and well restored cars still have the tell tale acrid aroma when you get into them.

3) Another bad one - fumes coming into the car from the engine courtesy of the heater foam being fubar. I really don't like this one at all, and far too many cars I've driven have had it. Not so much a smell, more like a really nasty sensation of bad air.

4) Fuel smell - later cars with the different breather tend to really stink for some reason. Anything over half full and the overpowering smell of petrol is really annoying, and worrying. I suspect this is, in a lot of cases, due to pipes being cut/moved during welding as my 2200SC does not do this, despite being a pretty late car.

5) Waxoyl. My 2200 absolutely hums of the stuff as the previous owner filled every nook and cranny he could. I don't mind :)

That's not including sweat/tobacco etc. etc.
 
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