My current hobby is a stinky car

My in laws decided to move. As a result, my wonderful husband spent around 15 weekends packing & hauling their stuff to Idaho. At the end of it all they had a 2001 Subaru Legacy Outback with no home. As luck would have it, my husband didn’t want it so it was available. But there was a catch - it smelled so bad. It didn’t just smell, it tasted. Before you look at these pictures I need you to imagine something: Imagine a 20 year old vehicle owned by a 2 pack a day smoker who DID NOT USE THE ASHTRAYS. Imagine how that vehicle might smell.

Also, imagine that it might never have really been “cleaned.”

Also imagine there’s a split in the sunroof seal so when it rains, a kind of cigarette smoke tea steeps within the headliner & drips on … everything.

Ashes & brown stains everywhere.

But the car itself has been dealership maintained & is in pretty good shape under the everything. (Timing belt done at 108k miles if you’re wondering.)

160,000 miles.

See? Dirty. Stinky. But not bad.

Step one: Sprayway & blot. For hours. I love Sprayway. It’s cheap, gentle, and pretty effective.

I worked from the outside in, as you can see here.

I don’t mind cigarette smell that much. I used to smoke, and I love the smell of fresh cigarette smoke, but this was something else.

It’s not a silver bullet, but until I replace the headliner it is vastly less filthy AND 1,000x less stinky.

Driver’s side carpet. This was after vacuuming the literal ash piles. Spray way was no match for this & I got to use a drill scrubby thingy.

Passenger front - lots of coffee was spilled here.

I took a break from the interior to take care of the headlights. They were rough.

I used the 3M kit from Walmart. The results have held up for a few months now.

I really enjoyed the process.

The paint on this car. Oof. I wasn’t sure if it was greenish purple red or red? Or something? And it has been used as a work surface I think. This is the hood. The clear coat was intact but specky so I couldn’t be super aggressive with rubbing compound which is what my very soul craved for me to do.

So I spent literally days polishing gently, this thing. I polished all of the little light covers inside the car, & the chrome bits outside the car as well. It was a nice time.

The result wasn’t magical but the car was starting to look loved.

Spoiler alert: it has a spoiler.

Then one morning, after I’d dropped off a kiddo at school, white smoke started billowing out of the driver’s side door. There was so much smoke! It was some of the most toxic smelling stuff I’ve ever smelled. So I took the door apart. Above is the culprit. A switched that had gotten stuck in place with goo.

Subaru doors come apart so easily, I was surprised. I spent a week with this thing parked across the road until I got the courage to do it.

And once the door was off it seemed like a good time to figure out why the little sub/amp wasn’t working, pull out the seats & try to install a cabin filter. In the above picture you can kind of see what the before looks like (under the seat) compared to after a lot of carpet cleaning. A lot of carpet cleaning is not enough, BTW. I will replace it in the next couple of months.

Huh. No pics of inside but it was rusty with coffee.

Finally I get to deep clean the seats! With the drill brush thingy!

Oh holy god.

This might seem like an insane amount of effort to put into a 2,000.00 vehicle, but my daily driver is our daughter’s wheelchair van. It is chronically ill, useless in snow & a resource that we need to conserve. So this 2k car is more valuable than it is, if that makes sense.

This model apparently did not come stock with a cabin air filter, so what you see here is the gummy harvest of 20 years. I did my best to clean it gently with a brush. This was also the single most difficult task so far. BUT I installed it. Backwards at first, because me.

Here’s the sunroof seal split. I filled it with oily modeling clay and that was a 100% success until I found a replacement sunroof.

My dad came over & installed a leather wheel cover because he really likes those. No pictures of what was under the original wheel cover. It was a lot.

I finally located an original sunroof & my dad wanted to install it. The first part was a piece of cake but then his BFF came over & hilarity wouldn’t stop ensuing. Also the interior trim piece was insanely difficult to get back in place. Fun fact: my dad doesn’t own a rubber mallet so he uses a hammer & wood. In the end, the sunroof install was a success & no leaks.

Here’s my dad. I’m proud of him. He had a quadruple bypass 4 years ago. We also swapped out the plugs & air filter. Insanely easy. So much easier than the cabin air filter.

Wheels. I hate these wheels. Any ideas?

The Safelite guy who honored my need to scrub. I love him.

I finally got to clean those vents!

Banana for scale.

I’ve driven just over 2k miles in it during this process. See the ash pile under the adjustment knob? Crazy. I’ll disassemble the instrument panel & polish the plastic lens. Probably next weekend. This weekend is installing a stereo. I’ve never done that before either. Wheeee!

Corndog tax. #hobby #hobby_day #subaru