My AC smells really musty when I first start my car up. I read up, and there are a bunch of products out there that you spray in the intake vents under hood cowl. Anyone have this issue before and found a good product they can actually recommend as being effective? I even saw someone say Lysol.

Edit: I did replace the cabin air filter with a new carbon filter, no change in smell.

 

First thing to try would be changing your cabin air filter. When was the last time it was replaced?

 

Definitely do this first if it hasn't been changed in a while. A good practice would also be to turn off your AC a minute or two before you get where you're going to help dry out the internals and keep water from staying in there and getting musty smelling to begin with.

 

I should have mentioned that I did this, replaced it with a carbon filter. No change in smell. I'm going to edit my post now.

 

If you've done this, and it's not coming from your interior a product like this or this would be a good cheap way to try and DIY to hopefully avoid having to take it somewhere to be cleaned out with an ozone machine or something.

 

A couple of years ago we had a bad AC smell issue with our other car. I used Lysol.
When spraying into the intake vents make sure the recirculation button is not "on" so the system pulls the Lysol and fresh air in.
It didn't take long for the bad smell to go away.

g/l

 

Agree with the Lysol comment. There are also commercially available products at the auto parts stores specifically for this. After you've sorayed it liberally into the intake vents and it's circulated, turn it off and let it disinfect.

In the future if you turn off the AC about a minute or two before shutting down the car it helps with not promoting the bacteria growth that causes the smell.

 

This. My 350Z does not have a cabin filter so disinfectant to kill the already present mold and turning ac off couple mins before turning car off to dry out the systems works wonders

 

Done this for years with with numerous cars, and it works like a charm - no musty smell whatsoever.

 

I bought an ozone generator off Amazon for $100. It does a good job removing odors. Run the recirculate on the HVAC for about a half hour with the doors and windows closed.

I get that smell at times, but running the AC on full blast for about 15 seconds always clears it up. It may have something to do with the air in there getting funky. New air seems to lack that smell.

 

I got that smell in only a few thousand miles.

They changed out the cabin air filter for free and said that they ran something through the system at my 10,000 mi service. He said that I got it in just days before my year was up and would have had to pay for it.

I asked if they did an ozone treatment and they said no. He referred to it as smoke. I have no idea they really even did anything.

It smells fine now. I'll try to turn off the ac before I shut it down.

 

So I have this issue now also. However, mine has gotten disgustingly worse to the point it's nauseating. With the ac on or off, it doesn't matter. The cabin stinks. Had the premium 30,xxx mile service done at Infiniti, just to make sure everything was good to go before I really start tinkering with stuff. They changed the cabin filter also.


Called them again today and will drop the car off tomorrow. If they can get rid of it for free, GREAT! If not, I'll follow the Lysol recommendation and see how far I get with that.