AC vents smelly when first starting car?

[flacobill]

Anyone else experience this? It dissipates pretty quickly but smells like spoiled food on start up.
AC works fine otherwise. Changing cabin filter did nothing. I usually keep it on recirc mode because of the Texas heat.
I would spray Lysol in the intake vents by the wipers if I could find any but that shit is impossible to find these days. Tia

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[justasimpleman]

Bacteria from condensation.

 

[Gruber]

I never had it, but it ssems to be a relatively common issue. If something is wet all the time, it is likely to eventually grow some sort of life, at least on this planet. It may be convenient to just keep the AC on all the time when it's hot, but if the AC is on all the time and the car is often/always turned off with the AC on, it will sit/sleep with water inside air ducts.
I always control the AC myself, so hot or not I turn it off before destination and generally let it often blow without cooling so it has a chance to dry out.

 

[flacobill]

Thx ... I’ll give that a shot. I’m guessing mildew too. I found something similar to Lysol so I’ll give that a whirl too

 

[BriteBlue]

I never had it, but it ssems to be a relatively common issue. If something is wet all the time, it it is likely to eventually grow some sort of life, at least on this planet. It may be convenient to just keep the AC on all the time when it's hot, but if the AC is on all the time and the car is often/always turned off with the AC on, it will sit/sleep with water inside air ducts.
I always control the AC myself, so hot or not I turn it off before destination and generally let it often blow without cooling so it has a chance to dry out.

I've always heard the same thing, turn off the AC & let some air blow through the evaporator for a few minutes to dry it out.

 

[pdimar25]

I always turn off my AC a few minutes before showing up at the house and then turn the cabin circulation ON when you park and leave the car. It closes the fresh air vent so nothing can get inside the car from the air vent. I had a coupe of small bugs inside my car one time and i tried that and it seemed to work. Also kept the outside air from coming in the car and settling inside giving that weird smell.

 

[ShanMan14]

Mine smells like a cat litter box on occasion. I leave it on all the time (at least currently) and it's random as to when it smells. There seems to be no correlation to the high-pitched whine it makes.

 

[nizarz]

It bacteria inside the vents and evaporator. My wife had the issue in her car. I bought a Ozone generator and it cleared it up nicely.

 

[Shankmeyster]

Don't run the AC on recirc if you want to avoid this. It only lets in minimal outside air to get rid of the condensation on the evap. I always notice this on cars that only run recirc. It really does not make enough of a difference. I live in AZ and have never used it.

 

[ez12a]

Made a how to guide on cleaning the evaporator core which is what causes much of the smell. Hope this is helpful to someone:



It's really easy for this car to get smelly if you don't take the time to dry it by running fresh air for a few minutes through the system.

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