Earlier this year, I made a discovery that made my heart sink like a rock chucked into a pond. The interior of one of my beloved Smarts was filled to the brim with toxic mold. My wife and I decided to tackle it ourselves, deploying harsh chemicals, a nifty cleaning machine, and some summer sun. As I’m about to put the car away for the winter, let’s check back in and see how things are going.
Back in June, I cracked open my mini warehouse with the goal of rearranging my cars. When I got the unit, I sort of just shoved cars in there without thinking about optimizing my use of the 39-foot space. As my fleet is constantly changing, I always have a need for just a little more room. So, I started getting obsessive over how to use the space to its maximum. I calculated things down to the inch, and figured out that if I arranged my cars in a specific way (and only in that way), I should be able to fit seven cars and three motorcycles in there. Fulfilling this plan required me to not just remove every car from the unit, but also replace one of the cars with a shorter one I was storing somewhere else. At first, I saw all of this as a necessary chore, but it turned out to have an unintended benefit.
As I reached the back of the unit, I had just one car to retrieve: a 2005 Smart Fortwo Passion Coupe that I got for free back in 2017. This is one of the cars that really kicked off my collecting, and I love it dearly. Since getting under my care, I brought back its hidden paint shine, cleaned up an interior that I thought was forever trashed, and even got its chaotic electrical system back on track. You know that feeling when you save a lovely rescue animal from getting put down? That’s how I felt about this car.
So, I bet you could imagine my horror when I opened the door and saw this:
I don’t remember these seats having polka dots on them!
It hit me that I screwed up big time. Last summer, I put a car cover on the Smart while it was parked outside. It was too big, so I closed some of it in the car to make it fit better. Apparently, this was a bad idea, as water ran down the cover and pooled up inside of the car. When I opened the doors, tens of gallons of water let out all over the interior. I foolishly put the car away for the winter with a still-wet interior without thinking about it.
When I saw the car next, the sight of that interior sent me running full-speed out of my storage unit and into a full panic. I told my fiancée (now wife), Sheryl, about it. She took a look and I remember her belting out a “holy fuck!” I had no idea what to do, firing up the Google machine and firing off panicked searches.
Advice on the internet about dealing with mold gets broad. Some sites recommend removing mold with white vinegar or even tea tree oil. However, mold is known to stake its roots in materials. It can also lay inactive waiting for just the right time to come back. Just make the conditions right and it can grow. If your cleaning attack is too weak, you’re just kicking the can down the road to have to do it again later.
Some other recommendations that I found said to strip the car’s interior down to the metal before a deep clean. And somehow it gets worse, as some recommend simply throwing away some pieces and rebuilding your interior with new, not moldy parts.
Years ago, a representative at Smart USA told me that Mercedes-Benz dealerships are advised not to touch or sell parts for the gray market Smarts. I called up my local Mercedes dealers and sure enough, that turned out to be the case. So I import all of my parts from Canada and Europe. These early Smarts utilized a ton of cloth, and the thought of the cost of importing more or less an entire interior threw me for a loop.
Thankfully, Sheryl had dealt with mold so many times in her life that she already had a game plan. Growing up on a farm on the east coast, mold was a regular part of life. And as an attorney today, she’s dealt with countless cases involving mold and the remediation of it. Sheryl felt that our best path forward was to hit the mold with hard harsh chemicals and heat.
To facilitate that, she picked up a Bissell Little Green Pro cleaning machine and a few gallons of RMR-86 Pro mold remover. The cleaning machine injects your chemical mix of choice into your target source material. It’s also combined with a vacuum that is supposed to pull whatever you’re cleaning out of the surface. We combined it with boiling water and the mold remover.
This stuff uses a proprietary mix of bleach and other chemicals to remove mold from a variety of surfaces. Sheryl’s used this killer combination in the past to great success. However, she issued me a warning: The chemicals are harsh enough that she was confident that it should kill the mold, but it might come at the expense of my seats’ color.
Well, discoloration is better than mold, so I told her to hit the interior with all that she could throw at it.
The car looked rather fantastic after just the first cleaning session. Sheryl not only killed the visible mold, but managed to pull out the oil stains that I haven’t been able to clean out since I got the car. Funny enough, in removing mold, she made the car’s interior cleaner than it has ever been in my possession.
That first cleaning did result in the interior losing just a little of its color, but the loss was in such a uniform way that it looks exactly the same.
Later, Sheryl did two more cleaning sessions, and we combined it with wiping down non-porous surfaces in the car with cleaning wipes. I was supposed to finish with an ozone generator, but I didn’t get around to it. Instead, the car sat outside of my parents’ house all summer getting baked under the sun. My car has a clear glass roof that makes the car an oven on just a regular summer day, but this summer had a lot of days above 100 degrees.
It’s been four months since then and the car’s been through a lot, including the very same kind of conditions that caused the mold in the first place.
Some readers warned me that I wouldn’t even get through the summer without the mold coming back. And I worried all summer that I’d pop open the door and find mold spots once again. Yet, as I’m about to put the car away for the winter, it remains in great shape.
To help the interior fully dry out, I placed a glasspack and a flex pipe under the carpets. Now, they’re fully dry and at least visibly, they look great. The plan is to store the car with the carpets suspended and with a dehumidifier in the garage that it will be stored in. Mold can still grow during our miserable Midwest winters, so keeping things dry will be important.
The car will join my 2012 Fortwo, which I’m happy to say still runs great after its revival. That car will be getting to sleep in a garage for the first time in over four years. And since that garage is heated, I can work through restoring it off and on through the winter.
As always, I want to hear from you lovely readers. I want to keep this stuff gone forever. Is there anything that we’re missing that can help keep mold at bay?
(This post contains a few Amazon affiliate partner links. If you buy something by clicking on a link The Autopian may make a commission)
I use this. It does kill mold and mildew but it really great for cigarette smoke and musty smells too. My friends and relatives in SE Florida use it in their boats its amazing.
STAR BRITE Mildew Odor Control – Fast Release System – Ideal for Boat, RV, Auto & Cabins Coming Out of Storage – Permanently Remove Odor in 4-6 Hours
Amazon link no affiliate
https://a.co/d/24JUtdh
I rebuilt pianos for a living sometime back, and we dealt with a fair bit of mold-often from fire cleanups.
1) ozone generators work, but output is toxic as noted, AND, it can seriously degrade some rubber & even plastic-I’m wary of them in a car.
2) Dampp-Chaser-a major brand of piano dehumidifiers-started as a company selling low-wattage heated rods to hang in Florida closets. 10 or so years ago they were still selling the rods for non-piano use. A 15 watt rod hung low in the car with windows cracked would be my go-to for long-term storage. Costs power, but no dehumidifier buckets to empty. Note: be very sceptical of cheap copies: heating elements (unsurprisingly) make great fire-starters.
Always long term park your cars with a window a little bit open.
Haven’t had any mold in any of mine, since I lerned that trick many yesrs ago.
If the car is outside, you must of course find some way for rain water not to get into the car, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
If the car cover is too big, just tie some knots in the bottom of the fabric along the edge. That way I got a regular sized one to fit my quite small Porsche 356.
Best solution for this kind of moisture problem is to buy a few gallon jugs of silica gel. Not cheap, but not expensive at about $40 each. Easily and infinitely reusable by heating the moisture out in your home oven.
You can make your own satchels of any desired size. I make satchels about the size of deck of cards by buying premade cotton bags, filling them and knotting them shut. Two satchels in each drawer of my tool boxes has kept everything rust free.
At first it’s a bit of pain in the backside to rotate the bags every month or two, but now it’s just another routine of life.
Oh,a minor note.
For oil stains on fabric i use normal mechanics de-greaser.Nothing works as well.
You just need to follow it up with detergent,etc to get rid of the smell
Thanks for posting an update Mercedes!! Everyone has differing opinions on mold treatments so it’s great to see actual evidence.
It’s too bad the bleach killed off some color. I get why you decided on the nuclear option though.It’s hard to imagine anything else working!
When you wrote the original article i’d just cleaned a car’s seats and carpets using vinegar* and detergent,then a bioflavinoid spray. I’m very happy to say no mold came back with mine either. Not even the slightest bit.
It’s now the cleanest non-new car i’ve owned.It even brought back some of it’s new car smell (it’s 23yo)!
*But here’s the thing.I cleaned several cars around the same time frame using various products (including some with bleach). In the end it got a bit confusing because i cant absolutely prove which product did the hard lifting!
That said it’s obvious the vinegar treated car is now completely mold free and smells great.The other cars not so much.
In future i’ll try the bioflavinoid by itself on light mold to see if it works. If it’s a heavy infestation i’ll go straight to vinegar again.Just have to hold my breath for several weeks while the vinegar smell dissipates,lol
“Is there anything that we’re missing that can help keep mold at bay?”
Borax. Cheap, nontoxic, effective and unlike more volatile agents Borax does not have an expiration date. Mix 1 part borax to 16 parts water. Spray and let dry. It’s also good for removing odors.
You might want to add vinegar to that mix too. Vinegar and borax work well together. The vinegar will evaporate over a few days leaving no smell. I’ve successfully removed even cat pee from vintage wool with vinegar.
Also you may want to ditch the Bissell and get a proper wet/dry shop vac. Those are much more powerful than the Bissell so you’ll pull more dirt and your fabrics will dry faster.
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I also want to say a hale and hearty THANK YOU for following up on your efforts to clean you car. Too often we see “look how great this is now” without any followup to confirm what worked and what didn’t. Thanks!
Since it will be in a garage, keep it as open as possible. Windows down and doors ajar, though be sure lights are off or battery disconnected. Air circulation is necessary to allow whatever moisture is around to dissipate as easily as possible.
Congrats on the wedding!
Mold is nasty, so glad to hear the mold remediation is going well. I will join countless others and your own acknowledgement in counseling what you already know – get that ozone generator going.
The problem with the ozone generator is frequent use will deteriorate natural and butyl rubber, such as weather stripping, spare tires etc.
A reference for the doubters:
https://www.applerubber.com/hot-topics-for-engineers/understanding-the-link-between-ozone-and-rubber-deterioration/
Ozone generator. You were going to do it—do it. Ozone kills the shit out of most things, and it will penetrate deep into the foam of your seats and the underlayment of your carpet. It’ll get into nooks and crannies that no hand-cleaning method can reach. Make sure you’re running the HVAC (on recirculate, of course) the whole time, both to make sure it gets into your HVAC ducts and also to help circulate the ozone throughout the car.
You probably already know this, but ozone is no joke. It’s very toxic and bad for your lungs. Definitely have the car outdoors while the generator is running. When you turn off the machine and open up the car to air it out, hold your breath. Air out the car for much longer than you think you need to after using the machine. Also, be aware that it may cloud the clear plastic on your radio, instrument panel, etc.
I wish I could have been there when you decided to shut the car cover in the door to tighten it up—I could’ve told you that it would conduct water down into the car’s interior. I don’t mean to say that you’re stupid or anything, just that that’s something I know and I’m sorry you had to learn it the hard way.
Good luck. Mold is tough stuff.
There’s a couple of them on Amazon for just $70. I’ve thought about getting one before. My golf Sportwagen leaked badly a few times before I found out the problem. Water pooled up in the spare tire area under the trunk, and soaked my headliner. I always cleaned out what I could and let it air dry out, but Sometimes in the summer it can smell a little funky in there. I’ve always thought about getting one and heard they’re great to have. I might have to try it out.
Just a note it’s good to leave it out in the hot sun to remove moisture but remember to regularly go in and absorb the moisture and squeeze it out outside. Otherwise it drips back on the floor or just gets revamped into the interior.
Congrats on the wedding to you and Sheryl! Last update I think we heard was you had the time off to prep (thanks for the update, Torch), and I guess do the deed!
Remember, a therapist is like a mechanic for your relationship. Sometimes we all need to call a pro to troubleshoot the things at the edge of or beyond our abilities and skillsets. Sometimes it’s easier/faster/safer to pay someone to help when you just can’t do it yourself.
Another idea is a “goldenrod”. Not sure how I’d feel about leaving one of these on in an unsupervised container long term. Safer than a lightbulb left on? Maybe?
https://www.amazon.com/GoldenRod-Original-Dehumidifier-12-Inch-725721/dp/B00D1WYXR0/
Cheaper brands are also available, but… ?
I lived in the Tropics for some years. One of the features in my house there was shielded light sockets in all the clothes closets which were located near the floor of each closet. Burning a 100 incandescent watt light bulb (no silly, you can’t use LED bulbs) generated enough heat to keep down the humidity and keep mold from growing on the clothes. The bulbs were located down low because, of course, heat rises.
I would think that this approach might work pretty well in a car as small as a Smart.
Halogen bulbs will generate even more heat
“Halogen bulbs will generate even more heat”
Nope. A 100W halogen is brighter than a 100W incandescent. More light = less heat.
The halogen is pressurized, and the internal temperature can be as high as 900 F (compared to 2-300 F for regular incandescent).
In fact, halogen bulbs have been banned in college dorms and other places long before LED or even CFL bulbs became popular due to the risk of fire and higher temps not found on regular incandescent bulbs.
There are inexpensive heating elements that plug into a light socket.
Search for “ceramic heat emitter” and you’ll find lots of choices in many different wattages.
I’ve had mixed results with dehumidifiers. I think they work best in well sealed rooms. And you need to drain them.
I once had two dehumidifiers in a two car garage. The garage leaked enough air into it that they never really seemed to affect the humidity even though I ran them 24 x 7.
I might also be tempted to get large “rechargable” desiccant packs and leaving them inside each sealed (vents closed) cars… And then check and recharge the packs as necessary.
Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Wisedry-Rechargeable-Desiccant-Microwave-Reactivated/dp/B0781BR7V7/
or
https://www.griotsgarage.com/air-dryer-desiccant-storage-bag/
Most residential-grade portable dehumidifiers have a port on the back that you can attach an ordinary garden hose to. If you have somewhere downhill that it can drain to (or if you’re willing to set up a pump) you don’t need to empty it.
Try a silica canister designed for gun safes rather than damp rid for a car. You can get them in metal cannisters or in cloth sacks. They have color indicators to tell when they have filled with moisture then you just take them out and bake them in the oven for a few hours to dry them for the metal one, or microwave for the cloth sack ones and then they are ready to go again. They are fairly inexpensive and work just as well as damp rid, but are spill proof.
Hey, congrats on getting married! It must have been recent, I thought maybe I missed an announcement somewhere in a previous article.
I guess I’ll file this under “Things that don’t generally happen if you have a reasonable amount of cars that you drive semi-regularly”.
The amount of issues that stem from having so many cars seems to only create even more work. Wouldn’t life be easier if a few cars were sold?
You tend to say that in response to the dumb issues I face with this fleet. 🙂
I suppose life would be much easier if I had far fewer cars, but it would be far more boring, too.
You are to be congadulated for crafting a career that you love! That’s worth almost any amount of problems and inconveniences.
Because cleaning mold out of a car is fun?
Seriously, I’m not suggesting to sell the entire fleet and get a base model Malibu. I’m simply saying that right now, you are probably on the, “spending lots of time fixing stuff because it simply doesn’t get used enough” side of the spectrum, and offloading one, two, three (?) cars would free up a significant piece of time to actually enjoy the other cars or spend real time achieving the goals you have for them.
“Because cleaning mold out of a car is fun?”
Believe it or not, but yes! I enjoy learning new things, the challenge of a job, and love involving my wife in car stuff when I can. We both had fun cleaning the car out, then being able to admire a job (hopefully) well-done.
I don’t actually wrench as much as I used to. I used to work on cars at home just about every weekend, but a strained relationship with one of my neighbors ended that. Explaining to cops that I’m not running an illegal car dealership is not fun, you know?
Nowadays, I’ll do stuff that’ll take no more than a few hours (like this car cleaning) but anything bigger just goes to my mechanic. Thus, I have lots of time to do stuff that isn’t car repair, hence the various trips that I’ve written about.
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I’m so used to seeing porn type scams on here i thought this was one as well.Thought they were upping their game by making it car related,lol
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Q: I want to keep this stuff gone forever. Is there anything that we’re missing that can help keep mold at bay?
A: I was supposed to finish with an ozone generator, but I didn’t get around to it.
Ah, you got me, there! 🙂
Thank you for this! Living in GA we’ve had this issue a couple of times. I’ve cleaned in a similar way to how you you described. If one of our cars is going to sit I get a bucket sized DampRid and let it sit in the car. I think it helps a little.
Making sure no water is spilled, no open water bottles or sink cups are in the car make a difference.
DampRid or similar product inside before you store it
Was going to suggest the same – get one of those tubs of them to sit in the car over the winter, so if there’s any moisture in there it’ll get sucked dry
DampRid also offers packets, each with a hanger for suspending from, say, a rear-view mirror.
I like them, as they’re more of a no-spill option. (Not totally spill-proof, but better.) The resulting solution is caustic, rust-inducing, and hard to clean up.
Yes! Get a couple containers to really dry it out.
DampRid is calcium chloride which is corrosive to steel. Would you keep a bucket of saltwater in your car?
That’s what you get after it absorbs moisture from the air, it turns to a salty liquid, rather than being bound up, like with real dessicants.
Silica gel is reusable, just put it in a oven set to 200 till it changes color
I’d love to hear your coupe with Glasspacks! 9.5/10 would recommend!
What’s the story with the Avalanche LTZ?
That’s a very nice truck, but it seems both more conventional and more practical than your typical vehicles; congrats if you’ve made a purchase I didn’t hear about.
That belongs to my dad! Mom has a Suburban 1500 in a matching black. It’s indeed a nice truck, one that I’d totally own if I didn’t have to use my parents’ garage to hide some of the hoard.