All of a sudden my 2009 TL sh-awd has a strange oder in the interior that seems to be coming from the vents. It is a stale, musty odor. I have a service appt., but wonder if anyone has had this issue. My car has only 14,000 miles, and has been serviced regularly. My guess is that the cabin filters need changing, but that is just a guess.

 

My old CL had that issue, but it had about 100k more miles than yours... I changed the filters and cleaned the vents and it cleared up.

 

it must be in the vent. some water coming from condensation stay in some pipes and are developping bacteria, mold etc. i know that it exist some spray that you can use. but use more the climatisation and it should dissapear.
i m not sure but i read somewhere that there is a small drain to evacuate the condensation and if it s plugged it could be the problem

 

Cabin filter. It takes 30 seconds to change. If you look on amazon, they've got the carbon/anti-odor one's from arm&hammer and others that are only a dollar or two more than the plain ones.. They make a difference IMO, last longer.

 

I have the same problem with my 2010 TL [45,000 miles]. I changed the cabin filter and the stale, musty odor still persists. What is the location of the condensation valve that someone mentioned in this thread?

 

I took car into the dealer and the service advisor confirmed the diagnosis below. The service adisor recommended spraying "ozium" a spray deoderizer into the vents and cabin and running heating system with recirc on for 15 minutes. Did that, problem gone, and interior smells good. You can get ozium at most parts stores and it comes in various fragrances. I bought original and new car fragrance, and used a combination of both.

 

Did you find the location of the condensation valve?

 

Nope. Problem has come back a little. It goes away after the heater and fan have been on for a minute or two. I am going to spray some more ozium in the vents, and then will ask dealership to look into it the next time I go in for service.

 

Did you spray in the vents or the cowl intake? If you did not spray into the cowl intake vent, I would suggest you do so. With A/C running with high speed fan in fresh air mode, spray into the cowl vent. Take care not to get any of the product on the paint.

 

I have the same problem!

Kinda makes it weird your bringing a hot date out on the town.

 

I had a problem about 20 years ago where a few "stink bugs" got into the vent system somehow and then died. When the heat was turned on they literally cooked and the smell that they made was worse than spoiled chicken and puke combined. I am not doing justice to describe how bad it smelled. When the dealer found the bugs in the defroster area of the vents, they were over come with a gag reflex themselves. They realized that the dead bugs were the issue at that point. Once they cleaned them out, cleaned out the inside of the vent pipes, shampoo & scrubbed the rest of the interior, eventually the smell went away after a couple of months with additional air fresheners and opened windows at all times. Even after they cleaned it up, my garage still smelled weeks later.

lesson: if you have a stink problem, it may be something dead in your pipes.

 

I read on another message board that mice are known to get up there and then get fried and completely ruin your ducting. I really hope this did not happen to me.

The guy on other message board said the mice like to get up in there when the engine is warm.