stinking air con! 2013 a4!

[Christian_a4]

Hi guys,

not had to post on here for a while. But the past few days when ive been turning off my aircon a horrible smell of sweaty feet comes through the vents, and also randomly when ive not used the aircon and just using a cold setting it also smells. the car has only got 17,000 on the clock and i use a/c quite alot so its not because of lack of use. it was smelling a while back so i used an air con sanitizer ( comma the make of it ) and it done nothing even after following the instructions word for word!

Any help would be much appreciated to get this stench out!

regards,

Christian

 

[Brennan]

Theres nothing worse. I had this fault in my previous car, an 09 Saab, putting the aircon on stunk me out of the car. Was actually so embarrassing when i had people in the car and i needed to clear the windscreen. It was like that for about 2 months, never did anything about it, sold the car like that lol I was told the aircon needed refilled.

In my A4 thank god ive no problems, use my aircon quite a bit, clearing windscreen, refreshing the air inside the car and to get a strong smell out of my vent air freshner.

Your best bet is to get the aircon gas changed, it'll fix your problem

 

[Christian_a4]

Yeah that's what i'm like mate if i have someone in the car! its annoying as i look after my car so much and always have an air freshener in the car yet this smell just stinks the car out!! will have a look into getting it re gassed, cheers mate

 

[CHEZ]

Well, what you have here is bacteria in the vents.
An air con recharge wont solve this at all, but what will is as follows,
Get car upto temp, and put heat on high, until your sweating lol, then down to cold for a few minutes, then back to hot and repeat a few more times.
Also, on returning from a journey when you have been using the air con, wack the heat up high for the last couple of mins to burn off any damp air/bacteria kicking about in the vent pipes!
This WILL work and is good practice to keep your air con healthy!
I do this all the time now,and never had any luck with the air con bombs you can buy!
Give it a go, after a few days it should be sweet smelling!

 

[Christian_a4]

awesome thank you i will give it a try

 

[rum4mo]

I agree about changing the gas having no effect, the gas is in a sealed system, so it is not it that is causing the smell directly - it is the incoming air's water content that is allowing the growth of nasties. One thing I have always done with cars that have air con is, after running the chiller, ie cooling enabled and requested, when about 5 miles from end of journey, switch the chiller off by selecting ECO on automatic systems, then demand LO temperature, by doing that you will be ramming ambient air through the evaporator which will heat it up and drive off any accumulated moisture - this will also warm up the entire air distribution pipework. One other thing, check in the area in front of the windscreen for leaves etc and make sure the pollen filter is clean, hoover out if not very clean - until you think it is time to replace it. I have run cars with A/C for about 20 years and so far have never had any problems, or used sanitiser - though I've bought two cans!

 

[Christian_a4]

Fantastic advice, think i will change pollon filter and check for any crud im there then try these methods to get rid of the smell!!

 

[rum4mo]

I'd think that a "bomb" will help as well, it seems from reading on this thread that it will not make the smell disappear quickly, but it should help to kill the nasties that are breeding in the evaporator area - and these nasties are not good for your health it has been said!

Edit:- I bought my first "bomb" a very long time ago, then read that they can leave a powdery residue behind which means a lot of hovering out and dusting of the inside of the car, the second one, Comma brand, I have only had for about eight years as I'd heard that the newer "bombs" don't leave a powdery mess behind - maybe need to try it out of wife's almost 12 years old Polo - easier to clean!

 

[Christian_a4]

Yeah i think ill set a bomb off in the car to help kill any bacteria present

 

[ShaneSun]

I also had a bad smell from my air con when i bought my A4 last year. So i checked the pollen filter and discovered it was black with dirt. The car is 5yrs old and has 70k miles on it and the pollen filter was never changed. Smell went as soon as i replaced it.
As said above, might be worth checking yours to see what its like.

 

[scotty76]

I used a bomb on our VW Jetta in the past which didn't really work. What did work was this stuff:



Though a fairly scary process, hard to shake the notion you're really gonna f*ck up the aircon for good but it did work, smell gone!

 

[opelfruit]

Well, what you have here is bacteria in the vents.
An air con recharge wont solve this at all, but what will is as follows,
Get car upto temp, and put heat on high, until your sweating lol, then down to cold for a few minutes, then back to hot and repeat a few more times.
Also, on returning from a journey when you have been using the air con, wack the heat up high for the last couple of mins to burn off any damp air/bacteria kicking about in the vent pipes!
This WILL work and is good practice to keep your air con healthy!
I do this all the time now,and never had any luck with the air con bombs you can buy!
Give it a go, after a few days it should be sweet smelling!

This is the issue and the fix.

Had smelly feet in mine last week and ran with the chiller on full blast (no AC) for 20mins or so on my way to work. It dries out the fins in the heat exchanger where the bacteria grow. If you get it now before it gets too bad this will solve it.