"Ozone" cleaning of interior?

[twistedtree]

I was talking to a guy yesterday about detailing one of my cars prior selling it, and he mentioned ozoning the interior.  I guess they close the car up with an ozone generator inside and let it run over night.  Apparently it kills off all the smells, mold, etc. and is regularly used when detailing modern cars.

BUT, I also participate in a boating forum where there was a discussion about getting rid of bilge mold, and ozone gassing came up there as well.  However someone pointed out that ozone eats away at rubber and can have disastrous side effects, especially in a  boat when a compromised hose can flood and sink a boat in short order.

SO, does anyone have any experience with ozone gassing a car's interior, either pro or con?  Right now I'm leaning towards telling him not to do it just because I don't want to take the risk, but I'd rather decide based on hard data rather than opinion and conjecture.

Thanks

[Jordan]

Peter, I called a friend of mine that supplies ozinators to wineries here in Ontario for cleaning purposes.  He confirmed that yes the ozone can effect rubber but it happens over a period of time.  If you are just doing it once for a short period of time (couple minutes) it should have no effect but if you did it weekly it would eventually degrade the rubber.  He told me of a mutual acquantiance that uses the ozinator regularly to disinfect his entire wine cellar.  He had a cart in the cellar and noticed after several months that the rubber wheels were starting to break apart.  Not sure why your guy would run the ozone over such a long period of time (over night).  He did confirm it is good for getting rid of odors since as you said it kills everything.

[twistedtree]

Awesome - that's just the kind of info I was looking for.

I found a couple of ozone generators designed for car "cleaning", and many have timers to run them for a limited time.  I didn't get into that much detail with my guy, so I'll find out how long he actually leaves it on.

[Ulf]

My parents had their summer house ozoned after my father started a grease fire (luckily damage was minimal), but doesn't it sound a bit like overkill to ozone a convertible just for cleaning purposes - after all, how bad can it be???
I just bought a very tired w123 that used to belong to an old man (the rare kind of smoker who doesn't open the windows when lighting up) and it smelled really bad and moldy inside, but
a good vacuum clean, then the textile cleaner that foams up and then dries into a dust that can be vacuumed up and a little odor remover (spray) did the trick and the cars smells really good inside again. For my Pagoda, I would finish off with a nice leather conditioner that really smells nice...

Just my opinion :-)

Ulf

[twistedtree]

The cars in question have been sitting in less-than-optimal storage for anywhere from 10 to 30 years, so all-out cleaning is called for.  I just don't want to damage anything.

[Ulf]

Ok - then I too would nuke them with ozone :-)