I was driving the MINI home yesterday with the aircon on, and that smell started coming out of the vents again. Arrrrgh! That slightly metallic, off-putting scent. Today I was bored, and that's always dangerous. I've tried several things to get whatever it is living in the airbox to die and stay dead. I'd kill it with fire if I could. I've used $10 cans of sterilizing products for car aircons to some effect, but the problem is that one can really only aim it into the blower cage and let the blower sling it around in the airbox. I looked into taking the heater box out and opening it up to scrub it out, but the instructions from the BMW TIS cd include pulling the steering column, the entire dash, the instruments, the center console, and of course draining all coolant and evacuating the Freon (or for the naughty, taking a personal bite of the ozone layer). What I want is a way to send a fine aerosol into the airbox, so that it can settle on everything inside and tear the cellular membranes right off those smelly pests. And, since I have a daughter with asthma, I have a steady supply of "nebulizers" that exist to create aerosol mists. These things cost about $5 new, and they need about 35psi to make a good strong, steady mist. A tiny, tiny air compressor can keep up with one. So, below is nothing more than a medical nebulizer duct-taped to a spare aluminum block, sitting under the air intake for the heater box (with the filter and cover removed from the car). The mist is sucked right into the box. I'm currently sending Febreeze Antimicrobial into the airbox. An anti-fungal agent will be next if necessary. Edit: After doing this for a while, I put the car outside in the sun and left it to idle for twenty minutes with recirc on, max heat, to cook out anything still alive. A thermocouple inserted into the top vent reported 180 degrees F, which should kill anything left. Die, nasty smell, die!
dude, this is extreme I virtually lost my sense of smell from smoking and it's times like this that I am almost grateful. Otherwise I might be joining in on the weird science
Good luck stinky cars are no fun. Is there a way of getting a UV light in there? They are starting to use them more and more in the HVAC field.
Yes they do! Powerful ones as well. The heater coil and the evaporator are packed close together in the box. Even with a lot of UV light I don't think that part would be sterilized. But yes, the vents themselves could be lit up (although I wouldn't want the light shining out of the vents into my eyes).
Well to use the lights to sterilize what's in there already probably won't work but having the lights on the intake and outlet of the system may help keep it cleaner, you'd want to put the lights far enough up the vents so that you can't see the source of lights, just an eerie healthy glow.
In my ideal world entire cars are like Audi LeMans drivetrains, a couple quick releases and the offending part comes out, is cleansed/repaired/modified, and is reinstalled in something like 10 minutes. Since we don't all live in my ideal world, this is GREAT. Let us know how it worked out...
I cleaned up a car that have been smoked in for 5 years with a ozone generator. You could not smell a thing and the odor never returned. Similar to these: OdorFree Ozone Generator and Commercial air Purifier - Professional Grade Cleaners That Eliminate Odors Naturally I just set it on the floor and turned it on full blast for 24 hours with the windows closed except for where the power cord entered.
That's a pretty cool idea, too. BTW guys, so far NO ODORS except for the Febreeze. I did fog some anti-fungal stuff into the car (something I bought at Autozone, though I did have to collect it from the aerosol can). Fingers are crossed!
Good info guys. Ozone is what commercial duct cleaners use - larger scale of course. High humidity environ's cause all kinds of problems. Sometimes I hate the south.
we always used an ozone generator at a dealership i detailed at... worked great. Just start, crank A/C and let run for about ten minutes