Advice on getting a burnt plastic smell out of a car

January wasn't a good month.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

This happened this past Tuesday to my Fiesta ST.  My step-son left an older Apple charge cord (with the exposed contacts) plugged into a USB port inside the armrest.  He grabbed his wallet, knocking the cord into the 12v power outlet.  Coming out 10 minutes later, the armrest was on fire.  So here we are.

The melted plastic parts are $700 and have already been ordered.  My question is how do I clean up the soot and smell deposited throughout the interior?

My thoughts so far are to start cleaning around the periphery, vacuuming the doors and the seats.  Next, I was thinking remove the seats and extract the burnt plastic center console.  Then, vacuum the carpet and remaining interior.  It's after that I start having doubts.  What's the next step?  Ozone generator?  Hot soapy water on the hard surfaces and shampoo the cloth? I imagine a final stage of a professional detailer will be required. I also imagine that some odor will remain regardless.

Any advice the hive can offer would be appreciated.  My concern is that this just became a track car, and not for me.

Your plan looks great, getting the melted bits out of there will probably cut the stench in half. I assume $700 for a tunnel console is from the dealership?

I would think the headliner  also got soot , 

I would pull the seats so you can clean them out of the car , 

and maybe get a https://www.bissell.com/en-us/product/little-green-portable-carpet-cleaner-1400B.html

to clean the carpet etc

Had great success with an ozone generator.  But I would pull the seats out first and preclean them.  I like ozone because it is zero effort.  Just plug it in and leave.

porschenut said:

Had great success with an ozone generator.  But I would pull the seats out first and preclean them.  I like ozone because it is zero effort.  Just plug it in and leave.

Ozone generator was my first thought as well.

I would probably deep clean everything as well as I could, then use the ozone generator to get out any remaining smoke/cleaning product smell.

My friend has a foreign car repair shop, he uses an O3 generator.  VW buses and Volvo wagons always smell like baby puke & sour chocolate milk.

Crack a window, stick the tube in, sealed with foam and let'er run for a while with engine and AC  on.

ALL smells gone.  Some people get a small headache right after the procedure, that's the only drawback.

Ozone (O3) has an odd number of electrons and it's always looking for something to even out its numbers.  It's scoops up everything.

The only thing like it I've heard of is a home unit called Eden Pure.

GameboyRMH said:

Your plan looks great, getting the melted bits out of there will probably cut the stench in half. I assume $700 for a tunnel console is from the dealership?

That's from Tasca.  They are typically a little better than dealer pricing.  There are a surprising number of parts in that console.  I considered hitting a junkyard, but my time is limited at this point.  I'm also working on a daughters 4Runner.

californiamilleghia said:

I would think the headliner  also got soot , 

I would pull the seats so you can clean them out of the car , 

and maybe get a https://www.bissell.com/en-us/product/little-green-portable-carpet-cleaner-1400B.html

to clean the carpet etc

We have an upright carpet shampooer that has a brush attachment similar to that.  I'd use the pet odor detergent as that's good at extracting smells.

Yeah, the headliner may be an issue.

As others have suggested, get the bulk of the burned plastic out of there asap.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

I just finished shoveling a foot of snow out of the driveway and got the car parked near (not in) the garage.  Pulling the seats today and hopefully the console soon after.

The smell is already much better.  I can actually be inside the car.  We'll leave the seats on a deep covered porch for a few nights.  At this point, I think just the driver's bottom seat cover needs replacing from stains and three burn spots.  Hopefully that is still available.

Thanks for the help, guys.

If you do try ozone be very careful after a treatment.  It is not human friendly, best to open the car up and put a fan nearby for an hour. 

10-20 of these:

Every pot fiend I know has about that many in their cars. Dope logic is infallible.

porschenut said:

If you do try ozone be very careful after a treatment.  It is not human friendly, best to open the car up and put a fan nearby for an hour. 

Also you do not want to use if for a long time as its bad for plastics and rubber , 

here is something on Reddit  under r/AutoDetailing

https://www.reddit.com/r/AutoDetailing/comments/17z4kve/can_an_ozone_generator_total_a_car/

californiamilleghia said:

porschenut said:

If you do try ozone be very careful after a treatment.  It is not human friendly, best to open the car up and put a fan nearby for an hour. 

Also you do not want to use if for a long time as its bad for plastics and rubber , 

here is something on Reddit  under r/AutoDetailing

https://www.reddit.com/r/AutoDetailing/comments/17z4kve/can_an_ozone_generator_total_a_car/

He says he ran it for an hour.. that must be one helluva ozone generator!  I've always read you run them for 6-8 hours at a time to de-smoke (as in, cigarette smoke) a car?

I have this ozone generator. I've used it successfully a few times to eliminate interior funk in a few used cars.

Ozone is bad for you. I set it up in the vehicle, start the vehicle, turn the a/c on recirc, turn the timer on the generator to 15 minutes, GTFO and close the door.

After it runs and shuts off, you want to ventilate the area for a few hours. I use the 15/2 rule; for every 15 minutes the generator runs, I ventilate for 2 hours. It's very important to let the ozone (and the funk) dissipate completely. Or your car smells like ozone. Ask me how I know lol