Nasty Odor From Heater

[The Critic]

Lately, when I have the heater running, the air coming through the vents smells like chinese herbs. No joke. I think my mom must have hauled a huge load of chinese herbs or something.

I'm not quite sure how to solve the problem, but I think I need to use some type of A/C Evaporator cleaning chemical as well as an HVAC system deodorizer. BG Frigi-Clean for cleaning the evaporator and BG Frigi-Fresh for deodorizing should do the job, right? I understand that the BG stuff is designed for A/C odors, but will it work for heater core odors as well?

http://www.ac-evaporator-cleaner.com/

Thanks!

 

[opus1]

I'd suspect a heater-core leak.

 

[administerturbo]

also try 1Z einszett Klima-Cleaner - A/C Odor + Bacteria Cleaner

 

[MONKEYMAN]

I used Frigi-Fresh with success. Less expensive options I have heard are Lysol. I used some Oust recently since I was out of Frigi-Fresh. Turned out I was smelling a gym bag that was left in a warm car after swimming.

 

[johnd]

I've had good luck putting the heater/ac on high, outside air, and squirting Febreeze into the air intake. The ac and heater cores are one over the other and anything that hits one will hit the other. Does pretty well minimizing funky odors from ac dampness in the summer.

 

[PT1]

Cabin air filter?

 

[cmhj]

Oust, freebreeze & lysol have worked for me on vehicles that have this issue. Anything that kills mold seems to work fairly well. If it has a cabin filter that should be replaced at the same time.

I did have one extreme case a couple years ago with a neighbor's pickup that we had to pull the unit and clean it. YUK!

johnd hit it. Unless there's a leak be it core related or body I've found this problem is usually prone to vehicles that run the AC and don't shut it off before parking. Turning off the AC and letting the fan run for a few minutes before parking has worked for us and have never had any heater/AC box odors. Ya' ok I'll knock on wood but if it works I won't fix it.

 

[harry j]

Turn off the A/C a few minutes before arriving at your destination, leaving the fan on high. This will dry out the evaporator, inhibiting unwanted nasties from growing and stinking up the cabin.

 

[The Critic]

Bad news.

I checked the coolant last night and discovered that it was more than a pint low.

While driving up I5 today, all of a sudden, I smelled a strong coolant odor from the heater vents. Shortly thereafter, the entire left side of the windshield fogged up with something that the defroster was unable to remove. I wiped off this "fog" and it appeared to have some coolant residue.

So, I'm guessing that I need a new heater core? Anyone have experience with doing a heater core on this car?

Thanks!

 

[lipadj46]

What kind of car is it? Some cars require you to remove the dash and some you can get the core out without removing the dash. Do you have a repair manual?

Maybe try some of the Prestone stop leak (from Walmart). I have used it as a temporary fix before. It is not that bad to flush out after you get the problem fixed.

 

[mechtech2]

I am not familiar with that particular car and model.
Some are rather easy, and some are ridiculous.
You'll need to find an ex Marine Drill Sgt. to help you with the vocabulary.

But you CAN do it with common hand tools.
It may be a long and tedious job, and will make you wonder why they buried it needlessly. Hopefully, it is rather straightforward.

 

[The Critic]

Since the repair cannot wait until this weekend, I had my dad drop the car off at Pep Boys this morning.

They diagnosed it as a heater core failure (duh), and began working on it at 10am. Book rate for this job is 2.7 hours.

After removing the old heater core, they found that their SPI heater core did not fit, so they had to order one from NAPA. The job was a huge PITA and they did not finish until after 4 pm. They certainly lost money on this job.

The labor was $213, the heater core was $105, coolant was $20, bringing the total with tax to around $340.

Was it worth the $213 in labor and the $40 or so in mark-up on the part? Heck yes. I'm glad I didn't do this job myself.