I would at least vacuum all the carpet areas thoroughly, and pull the ones under the footwells that snap out. That will open up the carpet fibers a bit and let the smell begin to dissipate on its own.

If they were still really bad after vacuuming, I'd be tempted to use a household carpet shampooer on the removable mats, letting them dry thoroughly (you do have til next summer ). Not sure about the rest of the carpet in the car ... to get rid of the smell, you could try spraying that Febreeze stuff (it's in the detergent aisle in our grocery stores), and maybe vacuum up the excess.

Febreeze has its own faint smell, though. I sprayed some on the wife's Subaru's carpet because the P.O. used hanging air fresheners also. It helped (and we didn't vacuum it again until much later). I wouldn't overdo it, because you don't want to saturate anything down to bare metal. I'd have the same reservations about a home carpet shampoo sprayed on the non-removable areas of the carpeting. Pulling up the 10 year old wall to wall carpeting in my house that had been shampooed perhaps twice revealed that the stuff had indeed penetrated the carpet, and padding. Better to do it twice lightly with ample drying time than once heavily.

Anyone have any ideas about steam cleaning them? Or is there a superior method, using dry cleaning type solvents? Luckily, my carpets are in excellent shape, with just few stains.

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Robert W. Roe
1984 300SD 165,655 miles



[This message has been edited by Robert W. Roe (edited 09-19-1999).]