Musty smell in car

Soldato
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Honestly not sure whats going on here with my car. Recently I have noticed (as have my passengers) an awful musty kinda smell in my car. I really can't place where it is coming from however.

At first I thought it was my new mats as removing them fixed the issue for a while.

Now the smell is back and it's not going away :( I shall be vacuuming the car and apply lots of febreeze to the carpets when I have time (after work) to see if that helps but I am stuck for what else it could be :(

Any suggestions? :(
 
Soldato
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Zip said:
Could be coming from the Air vent?

Is it a smell of an old persons house?

Or a smell of cat wee?

I do notice it coming from the vents when I leave the car parked with the aircon turned on (forget to turn it off). Upon restarting the car it smells pretty nasty.

I don't know any old people (bar my parents :p) so thats out of the question.

The cats aren't allowed in my car usually - take them in my dad's Kangoo when needed.


Count_Zero99uk said:
Has something managed to crawl into some gap and die?

Just a thought

CountZero


A good thought but really doesn't smell like a dead smell.


GT3 said:
What car is it? Could be sunroof or window seals letting in moisture or even leaking a bit of water down under the carpets.


Seat Leon

Only thing I can think of that could be causing it is after heavy rain or washing the car the passenger door dribbles water when you open it. However from what I can see nothing goes on the carpet - just the plastic edge of the door...
 
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Soldato
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It sounds like it's coming from the air vents.

On a lot of e46 BMWs (mine included), you get a musty stench from the vents in the summer when you kill the air conditioning. Something to do with water stagnating in some pipe somewhere.

You might be experiencing a similar problem on your Leon. The guys over on the BMW forums have been using Paradigm's trick to cure it - apparently works a treat by killing all the bacteria.
 
Soldato
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paradigm said:
Might be worthwhile running an aircon cleaner ("bomb" thing) in the car. Mine randomly started producing a musty smell a few weeks back, and that cured it :)
Sounds about right. The air con scan smell pretty musty on Leons when switched off.
Get one of the cans paradigm has mentioned, start the speray and run the air con in recirc mode for about 15 minutes.
Should sort it.

I need to do mine, but never get round to it!
 

Zip

Zip

Soldato
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Psymonkee said:
The cats aren't allowed in my car usually - take them in my dad's Kangoo when needed.

Cats dont need to be in the car to make it smell like wee.

All they need to do is wee on the Windscreen and that runs down and the next time you turn the Air vent on the car smells like cat wee :p :(
 
Associate
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I had something like smelly feet, nothing cured it even tried the air con cleaners, car spray the lot - in the end turned out to be the really cheap 5 litres for a quid screen wash.

Once it was emptied the smell went, worth a try.
 
Soldato
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So far so good :)

Aircon Cleaner has left the car smelling a lot fresher and their is no manky smell (beyond that of the cleaner stuff :p)

Hopefully thats the last of it for now.....
 
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