Car air-conditioning smells

The smell is due to fungal growths in the damp conditions in the air ducts. Turn the heater onto full hot (A/C off) and leave it for a few minutes (after the car has reached operating temperature, obviously). This will dry the air ducts and kill the smell. Best to do this every few weeks.

No

It's very common.

Yes. Halfords etc sell anti-bacterial sprays specifically for this purpose

- you switch the A/C to recirculate and spray it in the internal air intake. Alternately, some say that Febreeze works just as well. The other way - which I do - is to switch off the A/C but leave the system blowing a few minutes before stopping the car as this should clear all the cold air.

Heh heh - I've not heard of it being a health hazard - merely an unpleasant smell.

Suposed to be mould in the filters so they said on the Polo I used to have. They sell a spray to spray into the air feed for the cabin.

Mark S.

I had a friend who had this with a Vauxhall and they never cured it !!

I have always left the airconditioning on, winter and summer. It de-humidifies as well as cooling which is helpful in winter.

The down side is you do have to learn how to use it . Invariably if a female member of the family borrows my car, when I get it back, as well as having no petrol, the airconditioning will have been turned off.

I once did a winter journey with a colleague, in her car, of about 120 miles. For the first 15-20 minutes the heater was on full blast. Then it was turned off completely and we suffered cold and condensation for the rest of the journey.

Paul Mc Cann

Okay - this sounds the easiest solution, so we'll try that first. Thanks for the advice.

That's good

Thanks everyone for helping.

Most likely a build up of bacteria...do a web search on 'car air conditioning smell' and you'll find lots of companies who can treat it by killing the bugs...

Don't Saabs have aircon filters? They could be removed and washed or changed.

Roger.

Condenser coil water drain nipple is probably plugged up. When AC is on you should get water dripping under the front of the car. It should come from a rubber hose with a flat nipple on the end. Squeeze the nipple till it vents. (OOPS)

BMW recommend you use recirc and spray the stuff into the internal air intake.

It's bacterial growth in the heat exchanger. Micro filters are usually just on the fresh air intake. I'm not sure where the bacteria comes from, but it could even be the person.

Thanks for that. My thoughts on going through the outside was that I'd pick up an extra section of duct from the windscreen to the fresh/recirc mixer.

Colin

Is that likely to be a problem on a car only 6 months old?

The problem appears to be only in the A/C heat exchanger itself - the bacteria grow on the very cold surface, rather than the surrounding trunking.

Any bright ideas on hpow to get rid of the cement/chalk dust smell afflicting the Exploder? I've driven about 600 miles on dusty chalk roads in dry heat and the aircon has obviously sucked in the dust and deposited it somewhere. There's obviously no filter on the inlet air and I suspect that the dust is sitting on the heat exchanger or in the plenum box.

Would I be a silly boy if I tried to hose it out?

LOL!

I thought it was only me that had observed this from the fairer sex. The upshot is wiping the windscreen and side window with a duster or the palm of the hand - lovely when it dries!

Looking at a Focus handbook I note they say the aircon should be run for at least 30minutes at least once per month. Friend's new Saab with aircon does not smell at all but he keeps aircon on all the time as company are paying for petrol :-)

In the end, the kind people at Saab agreed to deal with it as a warranty repair - I must say I was rather surprised. My wife took it in, but she has no idea what they did.

Oh well.

Geoff

I doubt the trade price for the deodorant is much above a quid or so - so well worth it for the goodwill.

Probably stick a bucket under the vents, and put an airline on the drain pipe. That cleras the drain and blows all water into teh footwell.

Then inject with anti-fingal/bvactaeial/nice smell and blow it in again.

I used to have an old XJS that would dump a half pint of icy water over the passengers leg on fast corners :-)

Took it to the dealership, where they did that. Took 5 seconds and fixed it completely.

The musty smells gradually faded out.