How to Make Your Car Smell Better After You Accidentally Hit a Skunk

A terrible thing happened to me on the way to work this week. I was about two blocks away from my destination, sipping my coffee and going about 40 mph when a skunk darted across the road and directly in front of my car. I hit it. I felt horrible.

As you can imagine, I arrived to work in a super stinky car. No car washes were open that early in the morning so I had to wait until I got off work. When I was finally able to take it to have it washed, I was really relieved to get rid of the smell and the reminder that I had killed a poor skunk by accident that morning.

Get our free mobile app

Unfortunately, the car wash didn't do anything to get rid of the smell. Nothing at all. This led me to search the internet for de-skunking remedies. There are a ton of them out there and there are even products you can buy for that exact problem.

I'm a big fan of saving money so I looked for the cheapest solution, which was putting distilled vinegar and dish detergent into a garden sprayer (one of those attachments that you add to your garden hose that is usually full of fertilizer) and then spraying the underside of my car and the tires.

The smell was gone instantly, which was awesome because it was starting to give me a headache. So if you're ever all skunked up and looking for a way to fix it, I highly recommend vinegar and dish soap. It will definitely do that trick.