Strange Smell from vents

Kyle is right...if you accelerate the corrosion of both the heater core and evaporator coil (they are stacked on each other in the central box), you could face thousands of dollars to repair the damage. See my post #14 for a simple safe solution to freshen up the vent smells.

 

How difficult is it to take both cores out and clean them?

Mike

Mobile on my SGH-i717

 

I have the pdf service manual and was looking at the process to get out both cores. Oh my god! the entire dash and center console has to come out just to get access to that box. Once you can even get at the box, there are several dis-assembly processes to it and of course you are dealing with the coolant feed for the heater core, which is on top of the evaporator coil. To replace or gain access to it would be very expensive, IMO. Someone posted on another thread a foaming cleaner in a pressurized can that I believe is injected thru the coil's drain hole. Now that should be accessible by pulling back the passenger's carpet up there to reveal the drain tube. I'm not sure if there is rinse required after the treatment.

 

You'd think a design engineer would know these coil's dirty up and design them with disconnects and EZ access to do the cleaning. Meatheads

Mike

Mobile on my SGH-i717

 

I agree Mike, but I did some checking and found this product on Amazon.com. It again works by injecting its foam up thru the drain tube, which is located under the upper left carpet area on the passenger's side. I'm thinking of ordering a can and trying it. It's supposed to be safe and will clean both the evap coil and the heater core all at once. Here's the details:


Product Description


Kool-It Evaporator and Heater Foam Cleaner helps to eliminate the musty, foul odor in your car. According to the national automotive radiator service association, air quality inside a vehicle can be up to 5 times worse than outside. Several studies have cited fungal and mold infections as the source of over 90 percent of chronic sinus problems. The EPA now classifies indoor airborne allergens as one of the most important environmental concerns. Contaminated air conditioning or more specifically, contamination in the heater and evaporator core, can cause foul smelling and even health threatening mold and mildew deposits. When mold and fungus spores are sucked into the AC of your vehicle, they land on a nice, dark, damp surface (the evaporator and its enclosure) and begin to grow and proliferate. Kool-It evaporator and heater foam cleaner is the quickest and easiest way to remove and neutralize mold and mildew in the AC and heater core systems. When used as directed, Kool-It evaporator and heater foam cleaner is released into the HVAC system through an easy to find drain plug (it's where the water from your AC drips out under the car). Unlike other products that simply mask odors, Kool-It is not an air freshener. It travels deep into the vehicle's evaporator and heater core unit and actually flushes out the mold and mildew deposits, leaving behind a very mild fresh, clean scent.

 

It certainly can't hurt to try it. My wife's car stinks like mold from the A/C. I'll give this stuff a try in her car.

Mike

Mobile on my SGH-i717

 

The design engineer probably says that to do that you have to give me more space. Those idiot engine people always get top priority. They are lucky I can fit in any kind of ventilation system with the tiny space I get.

Mike

 

AC is a complex system. You can not just take a few parts off and then put them back on easily.

Basically, each AC system consists of a compressor, (an expansion valve,) a condensing coil, a cooling coil (or evaporator) and the refrigerant. Compressor is usually driven directly by the internal combustion engine (or ICE) but in Prius, it is driven by an electrical motor located in the engine compartment. Condensing coil is usually arranged in front of the ICE's water cooling radiator. Cooling coil is nested inside the venting system inside the car. They are all connected together by metallic tubes to form a closed system. The refrigerant plays an important part in the AC system. If the refrigerant is released into the atmosphere from the system, you will need to purge the air (or mainly water vapor) from the whole AC system before you can refill it with the new refrigerant. You will need to have some training as well as a few special equipments to do so...

Naturally, when warm and humid air contacts a cold object, like something is just taken out of a freezer, moisture in the air immediately condenses on its surface. This happens exactly the same at the evaporative coil in your car. The best way to keep the evaporative coil clean and dry, is to turn your AC off at least 2-3 minutes before the car's ignition is turned off. It's uncomfortable to some people who live in the hot and humid places, but if you don't do so, mold will build a love nest in there. And this will happen to any car, not just Prius or Toyota.

Nowsadays auto companies can build an automatic "drying" cycle after the engine turning off by running a fan for a few minutes if the computer senses the AC system had been used to the end of the driving...

 

The drying cycle sounds like a good solution. Need someone to build a module that we can purchase

Mike

Mobile on my SGH-i717

 

Getting access to the drain tube is fairly easy. Find the upper left edge of the passenger carpet in the foot well. Then carefully peal it towards you and within a few inches, you will see the tube. I'd say disconnect the lower black rubber part from the white plastic elbow and that is where I would suggest "injecting" the Kool-it.

I was reading some of the reviews of this and other similar cleaners on Amazon and I would say this is the better method. Other similar cleaners use a long plastic tube where you inject cleaner thru the center vent. This may or may not work on a Prius and one guy fried his electronics on an Acura so I'm doubtful on the center-vent injection method. Using the drain-tube method gets the foam directly onto the coils.

What I might try is a "rinse" after the foam has done its job by injecting some water up the drain tube and letting all the mold residue drain out. I'd have to rig up some plastic tubing to do this so it doesn't get in the car. Again, all done thru the drain tube. Let us know how it went for you if you try Kool-it.

 

I think you will find the "in car" method much easier than jacking up the car and searching for the outlet of the drain tube. Try my suggestion of pulling back on that piece of carpet and you will see the white tube with back rubber connections on the top and bottom of it. Gently pull off the lower rubber tube from the white tube and there's where you inject the cleaner. The OD (outside diameter) of the white tube is about 5/8 inch or metric equivalent. If you opt out of a "rinse", all you would need to do is inject the foam in the white drain tube, block it for the specified time (I think it's 20 to 30 minutes), and then reconnect the drain tube to the black rubber tube and let the gunk flow out of the bottom of the car. Someone suggested having a rag handy to catch any outflow as you reconnect the drain tube to the black tube. Then just press the carpet back into position. You could put a plastic catch tub under the car so the gunk with dead mold doesn't get on your driveway. I've read the output of the flush is a purple-green color. Yuck! Think of all that mold living in your HVAC coils!

 

That is about the nears you are going to get to the coil, without tearing things up. It should work fine.

 

If you normally see condensation dripping from the bottom of the car after it has stopped, this could mean a blockage. After running your car with the AC on during humid times, park in the driveway and get a rag ready. Pull back the carpet and disconnect the white elbow from lower rubber connection and if water starts running out, you could have a blockage somewhere (the rag is to absorb the condensation if it starts running). If there's no condensation, it could be blocked in the coil box near the drain opening. I'm not sure if they make extra long pipe-cleaners, but running one up towards the coil box might clear a blockage. My guess is that it would be blocked after the floorboard under the car.
Sometimes when it's really dry here, there is no condensation but I'm not sure about where you live.

 

Here's what I found. Phoenixgreg is mostly right in regards to the footwell heat vent being connected to the a/c evaporator coil. The heat vent is actually in-between the two cores.

I pulled off the footwell heat vent piece (and broke one of the tabs on that piece, so be careful), and here is what I saw:





This is the piece that has to come off, note the part that I broke. I'm not sure if this is avoidable...it may take a lot of care to take off this piece without breaking one of the tabs. However, even with one tab, the piece is still 70% secure...



Anyway, I'm guessing that the top core that you see (silver color one, not the black one) is the heater core. The darker color one on the lower level is probably the evaporator core?

If so, then there's no need to drill any holes - just pull off this piece and spray the product in. The core is about 4-6" from the entrance, so you'll need a longer hose of some sort to reach it.

Mine looks okay (plus the odor has been gone again for a while, ever since i started using fresh air mode only) so I'm probably not going to spray any in there. I do have the BG frigi-clean kit if anyone wants to buy it....since I bought it and won't be using it for a while, if at all.

 

Mold which loves and needs a Food Source dark and moist places I would replace the cabin filter and the dealer will clean the system for you ---if you leave the Mold it will grow and spread Bleach 50-50 mix will kill it if you can get to it and check the drain it may be pluged, there is a lot of pollen in the air!

 

Great pictures

 

Thanks. Now that The Critic has removed the plastic vent tube, we can see the heater and evaporator coils as they are stacked in the chamber box.

@ The Critic,
Thank you for your courage to remove that plastic vent tube so we can have a look at the evap and heater coils. Now that I see how the tabs look, maybe there's a way to "squeeze" the top of the assembly in such a way that it can be removed without breaking a tab.