awang

Whenever I turn on my A/C, it smells like rotten cheese. What could be the source of this smell? I replaced the cabin vents, but I'm not sure what else to do.

toyomatt84

iTrader: (1)

Have you replaced the cabin air filter?

tonykdee

i have an 04. mine smells as well but i don't know about rotten cheese.
replacing my cabin filter soon

awang

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by toyomatt84 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Have you replaced the cabin air filter?</TD></TR></TABLE>

i feel like a retard. yes, i replaced the cabin air filter (the ones behind the glove carpetment). i originally said "cabin vents" and meant cabin air filter. sorry

toyomatt84

iTrader: (1)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by awang &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

i feel like a retard. yes, i replaced the cabin air filter (the ones behind the glove carpetment). i originally said "cabin vents" and meant cabin air filter. sorry </TD></TR></TABLE>

Try pulling out the cabin air filter and lining it with some odor killing spray, then crank the heat in the car, to see if that clears out the vents.

DynastyRacer22

^ yup stick some airspencer squash smell in there as well lol

ejLday

lol yes squash is the remedy!

Jellotree

Turn the heat on. Does it smell worse?

Anyways, maybe something crawled up and died in your vents?

It Wasn't Me

Hahaha.. I used to mess with people by putting things in their air vents. Anything from food products to animal waste. I was quite nefarious as a young lad.

Harlowe

Are you or have you ever been friends with It Wasn't Me?
LOL

07rebel

do u leave the circulation button on??? a friend of mine had a bad smell in his and he never had the circulation on and it started growing mold in the vents maybe that??

awang

i alternate daily between having my vents open and vents closed. when i do AC, i close the vents. it is then that the smell comes...

awang

didn't work.

the vents still smell

AzunEX

you might have fungus forming in the heatercore.

awang

how would i fix this?

allsho

I had this happen to me aswell.. What i did was went to a mechanic and told him about that.. he gave me this can of spray and what u do is..

you open the can up in ur car and it starts to spay a mist.. You then turn your car on and turn the ac on and have the air circulating inside the vehicle.. you let ur car run for about 15 minutes and bam the smell was gone..

i sure wish i coudl remember waht it was called.. id say just go to a mechanic and ask him if they have anyhthing like this.. i think the cost was like 10-15 bones..

hope that helps
eric

4honor

I don't know about rotten smell, but my 05 Civic has a "chemical coolant-ish" smell when I turn it on, like if you smell the cold air that comes freshly out of the AC. It really doesn't bother me, but I thought AC is supposed to just put out cold air, not "cold" smell also...

DieMaster

iTrader: (1)

mine smelles real bad too. only in the cold side and it gets worse when the AC is on or has been turned off while the air warms back up.

mine smels like 80% baby powder 10% "used" baby dieper and %10 mold/milde

yea i whats that name of that mist stuff? i'd love it if that worked on mine.

zivraz

I'm another civic a/c casualty... Any clues anyone?

ConcertGuy

Mine did the same thing, so I ended up spraying cologne in the vents. It went away, and doesn't smell like the cologne anymore, so I'm not sure what the issue was. It smelled like someone stuffed hunks of rotting flesh next to my cabin filters, though. Disgusting.

redbull-1

You could try to get Frigi Fresh:

http://www.bgprod.com/products/climatecontrol.html

Some automotive shops have them; otherwise, order through the internet.

kcari

mine sometimes smells like burning plastic when i have the AC on with teh defroster.
I changed my cabin filters and 90% of the smell has gone away.

00falcon

i assume you already tried the heat at full blast for 15 min...

zivraz

should it be with internal circulation, or outside air intake? while the "a/c" lamp is on, or off? (i'm not sure which combinations i already tried...)
also, i opened the filter drawers in my '04 civic (those behind the gloves compartment), and they were empty [twilight zone theme start now] - nothing like a screen or foam like you get in regular home a/c units - these were just empty (white) plastic frames, with an inscription on them indicating the direction of airflow, suggesting i got to the right place. this seems strange to me.

00falcon

you had no air filter all along?

eww... go get some