Hyundai Has An Official Fix For The Palisade Interior Smell Problem

A few months ago Hyundai Palisade owners brought to light the issue that after a few thousand miles, the SUVs’ new car smell leaves, and is replaced with a new foul odor. Said owners insisted that no amount of interior conditioning or baking the smell in the heat cured it. Naturally, with a car that new you shouldn’t be having to deep clean your interior that often anyways.

The odor was described as “a sharp chemical odor with a dash of something organic like garlic or rotten produce”. Palisade owners had a theory that the smell is coming from the premium Nappa leather seat material being that as of now, the cloth-seat models are odor-free. Another thought is that the headrests were to blame.

Good news though, Palisade owners. Hyundai now officially has a fix! And you’ll probably get a kick out of it being it’s a fix you could have done on your own.

The automaker has issued a technical service bulletin to dealers with instructions, as reported by The Drive. Essentially, the official solution is to douse the foam inside the Palisade’s headrests and seat backs with Febreze. In fact, dealers are instructed to saturate the headrest’s foam with an off-the-shelf odor eliminator and spray some into the mounting holes. We wish we were kidding.

Maybe there’s a special solution only dealerships have access to, you might ask? Nope. Suggested solutions are Febreze Fabric Refresher, pure&clean Surface Cleanser and Zep Air and Fabric Odor Eliminator. In other words, items you can buy at your local grocery store. While the solutions used are over-the-counter, Hyundai apparently is advising affected owners to get the work done at a dealership to avoid unintentional damage to the Nappa leather surfaces or stitching.

It should be noted that several owners reported testing this treatment and found it ineffective so we’ll see if Hyundai has somehow turned it into a permanent solution.