Cars That Smell Are Hard to Sell!
Smelly cars, as the old adage goes, are hard to sell. Whether you are in the car sales business, the auto detail industry, or are just trying to sell your used car; the lesson is often learned the hard way. When a car has been smoked in, retail prices are often lowered by hundreds or thousands of dollars, and they sit on the lot for much longer periods of time. Dealer inventories can truly stagnate when they are left with an inventory of smoked-in cars, while the non-smokers' cars sell like hotcakes. This makes the trade-in values for smoked in cars plummet. Car odors are not limited to just cigarettes though, pet odors, spilt milk, mold, mildew, and even spilled gasoline, just to name a few, the list goes on and on.
Chemical Cover Ups Are Not The Answer!
For the last fifty years the automobile industry has relied on chemical perfumes, odor-actants, bombs, foggers, and cover up chemistry to make stinky cars easy to sell. This typically involves washing, laundering, and scrubbing and, then, spraying or fogging a chemical based odor-actant and or chemical perfume in the car. Another popular approach is an odor bomb, this is another temporary fix that wears off quickly. These types of chemistry based approaches are actually just a way to cover up the odors. They will cover up the odor for a while, but unfortunately, they always come back. The reason is simple, they are not eliminating the source of the odor at the molecular level. The basis of the odor is still there, because they never actually eliminate the molecules.
What Causes Odors?
Did you know, odors are detected through our olfactory sense by the olfactory "chemoreceptors"? That's right dogs have as many as 40, 000,000 per square centimeter. Odorants are volatile chemicals that are detected in the inhaled air by the olfactory epithelium located in the nasal cavities just below and between the eyes and above the roof of the mouth. The olfactory epithelium in people is about 2.5 square centimeters, and contains, about 50 million primary sensory receptor cells. The chemoreceptors react to various chemicals, for example aldehydes, sulfides, ketones, esters and other compounds.
Scientists have discovered that the odor of a substance is related to the shape and atomic composition of the molecules producing the odor. Of course, for the substance to reach the nerve sensors in the nose, the material must be volatile -- that is, it should be able to evaporate and appear in gaseous form. This is why the effects of chemical based cover ups never last. Since perfumes contain a variety of compounds that do evaporate rather easily, the effect is temporary. When the vapors reach the nasal sensors, an electrical signal is sent to the brain. The nasal sensors have "receptor sites" that accommodate the shape and chemistry of odor-producing molecules. Different molecular shapes and compositions trigger responses in different sensors.
There Is A Better Way!
Rather than try to cover up an odor with perfumes that evaporate rather quickly, why not eliminate the odorants at the source? For many years there have been a variety of machines called ozone generators that have been available for use by auto detailers. Unfortunately, the majority of these are extremely expensive, and offer extremely low output. The relatively low output of these ozone generators or ozone machines, has really given ozone, natures cleansing molecule, a very bad rap. In order for ozone to be truly effective for car odor removal and to work for you, it has to be made in really high volumes. Most ozone generators do not do this. To get the odor removal results you really want; you need to get an ozone generator with really high output, of at least 14,000 milligrams per hour. When you start making ozone at this volume you start to get the ozone to really work for you, and it won't take all day. Ozone breaks the odorants that cause odors down at the molecular level. It actually destroys the odor causing chemicals or agents. As a result, once the odor is removed, it will stay gone.
Use An Ozone Generator With a Duct Hose
When you are using a high output ozone generator to remove car odors. It is not a good idea to use a machine that has been designed to go into the car itself. The reason why, is ozone is made by converting the air in the car to ozone gas. If you use a really powerful 14k machine or even a 21k ozone generator it will quickly convert all the air in the car to ozone, and, because air has nitrogen too, you can end up making nitric oxides and nitric acids. Some companies have developed a solution for this problem. They build ozone generators with a duct hose attachment. This allows the ozone generator to sit outside the car and to constantly convert fresh air into ozone gas. By constantly converting fresh air to ozone, a much purer, more effective form of ozone gas, is produced.
Super Auto Detail Ozone Machines
There is even a new kind of super auto detail ozone machine, one that offers a variety of attachments, and uses a hose and wand to force the ozone gas directly into seat fabrics, headliners, and carpeting. These new super auto detail ozone generators are the ultimate tool to eliminate car odor problems, permanently. By forcing the gas into the headliners, fabrics, and carpets they give an amazing edge over "normal" sit-inside-the-car, ozone generators. If you want a real solution to car odors and car odor removal, and if you need a better solution than perfume bombs (that quickly evaporate) for the auto detail business, look no further. Buy one of the new super auto detail ozone machines for your detail or re-sale business today.