That funk has got to go!

[ColonelPanic]

I need some help defunkifying the ol' Vibe here, guys. Here's the deal: Any time I have the A/C off, recirculate off, and I am just drawing in fresh air, it tends to smell horrible. Very noticeable when first starting it up. At any given time, one may get a whiff of any of the following aromas: 1: Pee. Yes, pee - like someone/something took a whiz down into the vents. I swear that wasn't me. The car sits outside all the time, so the chances of an animal climbing on the hood and relieving him/herself down the cowl vents is probable, I suppose. 2: There is another strong funk that smells just like some sort of adhesive - caulking/glue/whatever, that's about the best I can describe it. 3: This is the most disgusting one... I don't know how forgetful you guys are and if you are slobs or not, but have you ever left a cup of gas station capuccino which had some stuff left in it in the car on a hot day? You come back out and find that nasty rotten smell... That's smell number three. Only the smell is coming out of the vents and not the cup holders.Now, if I smell anything out of the ordinary, I can switch on the A/C and leave it in fresh air mode, after a few minutes the smell is gone. As the A/C is switched off, the air will gradually become foul once more. It will not be as bad as it was initially after starting the car up with the A/C off, but still smells worse than it should.This wasn't an issue until the weather cooled down and I don't need to run the A/C as much. But even if it is 50 degrees outside, I still have to run the A/C and turn the temperature up to keep reasonably clean smelling air flowing into the cabin. So far, I have tried spraying heavy amounts of both Lysol and Ozium down the cowl vents on the outside as the fan was on 4, air blowing from the dash vents, A/C and recirc off. In similar fashion, I also removed the cabin air filter and sprayed the stuff into the opening where the filter goes as the air was blowing full force. The use of those chemicals do help to an extent, but they are obviously just masking the odors and aren't doing a thing to combat the root of the problem.There is something growing in there somewhere, at least that is my guess. I had similar issues with the Malibu, the dealer took apart the dash used this nifty GM-brand disinfectant spray they had and cleaned up the condenser/etc. I wonder if something like that is doable on this car? And of course, odors/etc are not covered under MajorGuard so I have to either shell out the money to get this done or figure out how to clean it up myself. Anybody have details on the process they may use for this?And I may have been dreaming here, but I swear I remember reading something about a fogger that you can use for issues such as these. Is there something I can set off in the car and leave the A/C running on recirc for a long time and let it circulate the magic fumes through the A/C system? Being a victim of this once already, I knew the tricks to help prevent this. Avoid using recirc whenever possible . Switch off the A/C a couple minutes before I get where I'm going and crank the fan to try to get the water out of the system. But I will admit that I haven't done this each and every time I've driven the car, and I probably haven't been letting it run long enough. I recall reading something when I was researching this on the Malibu, and if I was actually creative enough and had enough motivation to mod this car, I would try to rig this up myself. Apparently, they had a timer circuit they could add where after x minutes once the ignition was switched off, the blower motor would kick on high and run for a few minutes. That in effect, eliminates the driver intervention with turning off the A/C and letting the fan run for a while before parking the car. Good idea in theory, not sure if or how it worked out.If someone can help guide me in the right direction here, that would be most appreciated.

[Sputnik]

You had the same problem on your other car? Hmm... thats a bit odd. What do you do with your cars? I opened up my Vibe last weekend to go shopping just after my bf had been in it and my God it smelled like a garbage dump. I checked all over for any leftover McDonalds containers but found nothing. I chalked it up to a *toot* (for a polite way of putting it) from my boyfriend. Opened up all the windows when driving and it was soon gone.

[ColonelPanic]

LOL! I can't win with air conditioning. The Malibu had some nasty A/C problems... Some were engineering/manufacturing defects like how it would pour water out from under the dash but the majority of the funk was probably due to user error. I used recirc on it way too much. Apparently it was enough of a problem that GM redesigned the A/C controls to switch back to fresh air mode each time the ignition was switched on, so I wasn't the only moron. Which I can see it smelling nasty if I ran the Vibe in recirc all the time, but I'm not doing that this time around.

[Namron]

CP, I seem to remember seeing a Product at Auto Zone that might help. I was on a display out in front on the Parts Counter, with other AC charging supplies. It was some sort of Oder Away product geard towards AC. This was during the summer, and those displays I'm sure are gone now. But, I wonder if the product like this is what the Dealerships use. You might stop into Auto Zone and ask???The other option might just be a Clothspin. Namron

[ragingfish]

Have you checked your cabin filter to make sure it isn't growing something?

[tnpartsguy]

CP, you need to open the vent to bring in outside air, and spray the Lysol at the base of the windshield (the outside air intake for the AC is there) on the passenger side. Do this with the windows UP and the AC on high. Let it run for at LEAST 15 minutes, then turn it off and leave it overnight. Hopefully this will kill the fungus, ect growing. if not contact me, and I'll try to get you a professonal kit.

[Digger]

sounds like a fungus or mold growing on the coils. they must freeze and not smell when the ac is on. I would get it cleaned though. some mold is very unhealthy to be around.

[northvibe]

maybe its a dead mouse in the vent system...yuck

[ToolGuy]

Many vehicles suffer from this... Mold on the evap AC coil. Chrysler has a TSB out about this affecting 22 vehicles. There is a flexible tool and a cleaner used (a kit), I hear it works great. However nothing lasts and the molds do come back. Try the Lysol thing again...

[northvibe]

colonelpanic, maybe you should wear a filter thingy like doctors do when u drive or you might get some crazy infection! jk....i hope you dont get sick from it, we dont need a broken vibe and person at the same time

[ColonelPanic]

Thanks for all the help, guys, you all rock. I think I'll start with the suggestion of spraying the vents down good from the outside and let it run longer than a few minutes. Since the slots for the vents are pretty small, I am going to try to remove the plastic cowl piece there and see if I can get closer to where the intake vent actually is. Hopefully I don't break it in the process, I would hate to have to duct tape something else on the car. I haven't looked close enough to see exactly how it is held in place, but it seems to not be too terribly tight, so probably just has some clips somewhere.Raging, I forgot to add in my novel up there, I have replaced the filter twice since the car was new... The last time was at the Ohio meet in August (thanks, Partsguy) so hopefully it is still good.And yep, this stuff can make a person sick for sure... But hopefully that doesn't happen. If it does, it would be hard to prove if it was the car or the stuff growing around the house that was the culprit.

[zionzr2]

yeah replace the cabin filter. but before you do run with it out for a bit of time doing the lysol cleaning while the system is runnign may help too...may need a professional vent cleaning and sanitation if the above tips/tricks dont work.

[BigMac]

Hopefully and/all of those ideas will work. If it doesn't;My parents have had to deal with both a mouse dying inside the vents somewhere. No amount of lysol will clean that, and some kids thinking it was funny to put dog food down the front grill.While your smell(s) might not be caused by either a mouse or dog food... there could be something solid down there.

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by BigMac »While your smell(s) might not be caused by either a mouse or dog food... there could be something solid down there.I cringe at the thought! It's possible something is dead in there. Yuck. Well folks, I'm off to tackle this problem... I will report back in a few hours.

[ColonelPanic]

Done. And I didn't break a single thing in the process. Only tools required were a couple flat blade screwdrivers and a philips. Oh yeah, and about 90% of a rather large can of lysol. First, I removed the plastic screw on the cowl.Next, I pulled the weatherstripping off and found several white plastic fasteners that were used to hold the weatherstripping on and to clip the plastic to the firewall. It slides under the windshield, just pull back to remove it. Thankfully, this piece does not go all the way across, otherwise I would have had to remove the wiper arm on the driver's side from what it looks like. Now, I see the air intake for the HVAC system. As you can see in this pic, it is closed off, as the switch was set to recirculate.And with it set to fresh air mode, I think... Sorry about the shadow. Basically, what I did was turn the fan on high, A/C off, air blowing from the dash vents and started spraying. I kept the Lysol flowing for several minutes. Once I was done spraying for a bit, I let the fan blow for about 15 minutes initially. Switched the vents to dash and floor, let it blow for several more minutes while spraying shots of lysol into the intake opening frequently. Switched to floor, did the same. Continued on for defrost/floor and defrost, but the engine was off so the A/C would not run. Set back to the dash vent position and switched to recirculate and let the air blow around in there for another five minutes. Kicked recirculate back off and sprayed yet again.I let the car sit for a few minutes, came back out and removed the filter. Shook it out pretty good and sprayed it heavily with lysol. It isn't in too bad of shape right now, it is slightly dirty - I've seen them much worse, but then again this thing has only been in there since August. While I had the filter out, I sprayed into the opening where the filter resides frequently. Also kept spraying outside as well. I repeated going through all the vent positions as I did earlier. Reinstalled the cabin filter and let it run for another half hour or so, fan on high. Ran the A/C for a few minutes and sprayed lysol through there yet again. Switched off the A/C. It started to rain, which sucked, since I had all that stuff dismantled around the windshield. I threw the cowl trim back on there and drove to a car wash... Sprayed it down with lysol yet again and also used some air sanitzer spray stuff that I have, which seems to work well. Once I figured I had dumped enough chemicals into my Vibe's HVAC system, I finished putting it back together. It went back together easy, the worst part was trying to get the weatherstripping to stay on there.Drove the car around for another 45 minutes or so with the fan on high and vents set to various positions, but never put it back to defrost, as I didn't want to run the A/C. So far, "fresh as a spring day." The car sat for a few minutes here and there, it didn't get too nasty once I fired the blower back up. The real test will be how it smells once I get in the thing tomorrow after it has been sitting all night. We shall see. I have learned from this car in the past, I should never say "I think I fixed it!" because that never turns out to be truthful. So we'll just have to wait it out...Thanks for the input guys, and if this does work, maybe it would be good advice for others in the same steenkin' situation.

[zionzr2]

thanks for the walk through!!Lets us know how it went the next day!!

[ColonelPanic]

This morning, I started the car up and had only a slight musty sort of smell coming from the vents. That went away after a minute or so. MUCH, MUCH better than what I had to endure previously. Took a trip today, had the fan going the while time and no nasty smells. I think this has been worth the effort. I plan on taking it back apart within the next week or two and doing this again just to be on the safe side.

[Sputnik]

So, speaking of funky smells... (yeah I can indirectly relate this story to my precious Sputnik Vibe).There's been a skunk in my yard. I hadn't seen it, yet I knew it had been there because of the big holes in my front yard as he was looking for grubs. This morning at 6 am when I go out to catch my bus, I open the door and whats out there near Sputnik, but a freakin' skunk! I have to walk by it to get to the driveway. Hmm... what to do I wonder? I holler up to the bf who, amazingly was awake, "hey there's a skunk out here!!" The skunk heard me and luckily wandered to the north, away from me and Sputnik. Gah, could you imagine if he had sprayed me? Sprayed Sputnik! I'd never get the smell out of him. Next year that yard is being ripped out for a front garden. Take that stinky skunk!!!

[ColonelPanic]

Very nice to hear how you were fortunate. It isn't fun when your car gets sprayed by one of those rascals or if you end up hitting one... I've been fortunate thus far, as I have only hit a few that were already roadkill so the beautiful aroma didn't last too long. But I still remember how my sister had her car sprayed by a skunk, it stunk for the better part of a year IIRC.

[Sputnik]

Its like the Seinfeld episode where his car stunk and he couldn't get rid of the smell. So far I've been lucky not to have "ode de Skunk" as a car mod.

[binary]

On a side note - if anyone gets water leakage in their car (say from a leaky door or window seal) lots of nasty sh-tuff can grow in the sound deadening material under the carpet.Our Escape had (and probably still has) a nasty leaky windshield - fixed many times under warrentee - when it would sit out in the summer sun - it would just about make you hurl when you opened the doors.The car was steam cleaned - and the dealer used an ozone machine over night inside of it.It smelled better than new - it was just perfect. Until the windshield leaked again.Anyway - short part: Ozone machine = good smell.

[Smity]

When you get near your destination turn off the recirculate switch and a/c to allow fresh air to go in the mixing chamber.

[ragingfish]

Try this CP:http://www.autosportcatalog.co...d=167

[ColonelPanic]

Sweet! Thanks man. So far, the smell hasn't returned but I may just have to order a bottle of that stuff and give it a good spraying anyway.

[ColonelPanic]

Yuck, imagine the aroma of a wet dog that took a leak all over himself spewing from your vents. Hey, I don't. *barf* I've gotta tear into this again and spray, spray, spray once more.

[scottstoked]

I know this thread is years old now, but I just wanted to say THANK YOU. The Lysol trick has cleared up the cat urine smell that was developing in my AC system. Everything smelled fresh and clean this morning on the drive to work