Rep Power: 362

sup guys

I appear to have somewhat of an annoying problem on my hands. I have the oem floormats and they're fine ... however, whenever it rains, obviously there's gonna be water on them from my sandals... and whenever the water evaporates, my whole car smells like mildew. How do I alleviate this problem?? ... air fresheners don't seem to do much unless they're insanely strong and I don't want to get something like that either.

Any suggestions?

 
Rep Power: 811

take em out and save weight. i just have a thin carpet on mine and it never smells. then if it gets dirty and torn, i'll just rip it out and put a new piece.

 
Rep Power: 277

Hmm, try taking them out and putting it in the sun for a couple of days.

 
Rep Power: 0

Here's a suggestion from a guy who works at a carwash.

First of all, vacuum your mats. Then, if, by any chance, you have something like a pressure washer, you use that to clean your mats thoroughly.

If not, you would just have to use any kind of water hose that has reletively high pressure to get a similar result.

Then, let it dry in the sun, check if it still smells.

Most likely it won't smell anymore. Also, check if the smell is actually coming out from the mats or from any other thing in your car.

If mine doesn't work, then the best thing you could do is to just visit any hand car wash place nearby and ask them to clean your mats with their equipments.

The smell, according to what you have explained, seems to be a bacterial problem, because I've had a similar thing on one of a pair of my jeans back in the days. I did the similar thing and it was solved.

Whenever I was wearing that jeans, I smelled the same thing everytime it started to rain lol.

 
Rep Power: 362

hmm, well I rarely ever wash my floormats.

it probably is some sort of bacterial problem ... it only started happening last year ... it never happened the first year or two I had my car

 
Rep Power: 251

Steam clean them!
Then you Febreeze the **** out of them ...I love Febreeze

...I hate the idea of getting nice carpet dirty, and I live in Canada, so I just threw in all season rubber matts

 
Rep Power: 811

use ozium

 
Rep Power: 315

^ ^ ^ Febreeze FTW

 
Rep Power: 0

Use arm n hammer baking soda, sprinkle them onto your carpet and then vaccuum it out, the baking soda will trap the odors and remove them.

 
Rep Power: 0

Here's what you should've done IMO

You should have two sets of floormats. One carpet floormats for spring & summer and One all season floormats you can get from walmart for rain & snow.

I have two sets and don't forget to vacuum your carpet floormats at least once every two weeks.

I also agree with the baking soda idea

 
Rep Power: 282

The self serve car washes that you need tons of quarters to use usually have clips up on the wall so you can hang your mats and use the presure washer on them. If you have one near by and none of the above work, try hitting up one of them.

 
Rep Power: 362

okay, here's an update ... which I probably should've updated like 2 weeks ago ... oh well.

the carpet under my floormats turned out to be wet ... I took countless paper towels and they kept soaking up water ... so my cousin and I took some time, removed my seats and completed removed my bottom carpet from the car ...

turns out there is white foam attached to the bottom of the carpet that was COMPLETELY soaked ... and the bottom of the floor literally had puddles of water. I have no idea how the heck all that water got there ... there is (was) a small hole where this gasket wasn't completely flush near my M/T shifter box ... but I don't think all that water could get it from a hole the size of a dime.

so anyway ... floor mats are back in (but not the carpet) ... and my car now smells like "Sexy Vanilla" due to my new air freshener =]

 
Rep Power: 0

Oxy-clean mixed in hot water and use some resolve or any other carpet cleaner if you have some bad spots. Get a stiff bristle brush (thinking bathtub or floor scrubbing brush) and use it on the mats. Then wail on the with some high pressure from a water hose and let them sun dry or you could use a wet dry vac for the carpet in the car. I think someone said a dryer sheet up under the sheet will help a little on odors but that may not be correct.

 
Rep Power: 811

the ozium works best to eliminate odor. my car smelled like pizza for days after i ate in it, finally i sprayed the ozium all over and kept the doors closed all night. smell was gone in the morning. but yea i did the same and ripped out the carpet. it was kinda gross actually. so now i have some cheap thin stuff for looks. i'm the only one that rides it mostly so the other sections are brand new. and when mine gets messed up, i'll rip it out and put in a fresh piece.