Smoking in car could knock £2,000 off asking price

People who smoke in their cars run the risk of losing thousands of pounds when they come to sell or trade it in, according to the motoring website Carbuyer.

A Carbuyer survey of 6,000 people found 87 per cent would not buy a used car that had been smoked in.

Those findings are echoed by automotive data specialists at cap-hpi who estimate that once potential smells, stains and burn marks had been taken into account, a car driven by a heavy smoker could easily lose up to £2,000 of its asking price.

With more than 30 million cars and roughly 7.6 million smokers in the UK, the total cost to the nation of smoked-in cars could be as high as £9.6billion.

Carbuyer editor Stuart Milne said the solution is simple: ‘With the cost of smoking increasing all the time, lighting up your car is yet another hidden expense. Not only does our research show that a car that’s been smoked in will be harder to sell on, but it could also cost you thousands.

“Bearing this in mind, it’s far better to pull over and get out before you light up.”

Getting rid of the after-effects of smoking isn’t just a matter of opening the windows and letting the car air.

Because stale smoke becomes ingrained in a car’s upholstery, it’s sometimes necessary to replace the car’s headliner, while in other cases a special ‘bomb’ is required to purge the air-conditioning system.

Even if such drastic treatments aren’t required, a straightforward clean to get rid of the smell can cost £150.

Although smokers are becoming a dying breed, roughly 16 per cent of the UK’s adult population still have yet to kick the habit.