Whenever I get in my car there is a bad smell. If i turn the AC on it goes away. It almost seems as if the smell is coming from the vents when the AC is off. I sprayed a bunch of febreeze down the AC induction vents under the windshied. Could this have made my AC filter decompose or something? Could there be a dead animal wedged under my engine? I need help! Please give me some advice! Thank you veyr much.

 

could be an animal. could be anything, you should get it checked out

 

I got the smell too. Nothing I have done has been able to completely get rid of it. It's NOT an animal. Because sometimes it is there...sometimes it isn't. Winter AND summer. AC on/off; heater on/off.

Most noticeable after a long hard run....

 

"it's your upper lip"...

 

But seriously folks...

They can actually clean out the a/c ducts at the dealership. They spray an anti-microbial in the ducts to prevent mold/mildew, etc.

Since Febreeze in your vents probably only made it worse, I'd have the dealer flush it out. Definitley sounds like something is growing in there...

Did this to my old Maxima & worked out great...

 

ewww growing..

 

I had the same problem. I would leave the recirculate button on all the time with A/C on for a short time. I found out to leave it off. Yes, as indicated by other poster, you can have the dealer flush the system. It costs about $100 bucks. I didn't do it though. Try this, put you heater on full blast and A/C on as well. Drive with windows open (gets real hot) and drive like this non stop for a while (15-30 minutes) without stopping. This should dry up any water or moldy moisture in the system. I did it this on my way home from a 3 hour trip for about 20 minutes at a time. No more smell! Let us know if it works.

 

Had the same problem, with funk in my ride. Tried everything febreeze, shampoo carpets nothing worked. Then got the idea of going to my refrigerator and putting in the Arm & Hammer in my cup holder over night and it did the trick.

 

you folks need to put on some deodorant after gym

 

easy fix,
1) make sure ur AC drain in not clogged. It can be water getting trapped and causing mildew to grow in ur vents. After finding the drain is not clogged,
2) find some lysol or something like that.
3) Pop ur hood and look for a grill type deal where the air is sucked in from for the vents. This is right near the windshield on the driver side for my 1st gen, i think it similar spot on second. Spray that puppy down.
4) Start car and AC (vents open), and see if u smell the lysol. If u smell it continue spraying it intake vent for a bit. (don't go overboard)

This should kill the smell from the vents. This is pretty much wat the dealership doesn't except they use something else than lysol. (similar product)

 

thanks for all the good ideas....hoowever after reading about the heat idea i tried that and it worked perfectly.............NO MORE SMELL!!! thanks a ton! you all are way too much help. but yeah, i left the heater on full blast for prolly 10 minutes and now there is no more smell.....=)

 

I recommend you change your interior air filters. There are two located behind the glove compartment and I bet they are moldy. After two years, I replaced mine and they looked disgusting. The hot air trick didn't get rid of the mold, it just dried it out.

 

But it will come back after a week or too. And my smell is outside of my car. Pull in the garage, take one bag of groceries inside in the fresh air, walk back out in the garage, ewwww....

 

I knew that eventually, this thread was gonna degenerate.

 

Also: Once the filters are out, you can get a clear look at the evaporator unit. If it looks like an ecosystem, spray it down with Lysol.

 

My mom's Range Rover had a BAD odor several years back, and smelled like something had died. She took it to the shop to have them look at it, and as they raised the car, ALL the mechanics jumped back, and lowered to car back down to tell my mother she had some unidentifiable animal frying near her cat conv., really nasty----

She drove her car to a car wash with undercarriage wash, told the manager of the problem, and for the price of one wash had it ran through three-four times. That got rid of some of the odor, but it took over 1 month for the smell to go away-