Alcohol smell in 2004 Prius

Unless you're trying to get out of a drunk driving charge your sense of smell needs independent verification... AC is usually a mildew/musty smell.

 

Yeah the musty mildew smell is the condensate water running off of the condenser coil and not escaping fast enough out of that box and that drain tube and you get old smelly water smell now glycol I could see you smelling that if you have the heater core leak or something along those lines which runs into the cabin all the time in these type of vehicles since the late '90s or even earlier glycol is what antifreeze is made out of a little bit different than alcohol but one of the hol's nonetheless.

 

good quality windshield washer fluid typically includes denatured alcohol.

Does your car have a rear wiper/washer? supply tube leak in cabin?

That's about the only "natural source" I can think of for an ethanol/methanol odor around a Prius.

 

I think it have to be the long too running to the back I think our front reservoir is so large because it supplies the front and the back via two squirters or pumps which are in the front forward edge of the jug I do believe.

 

You should be proud of getting your moneys' worth out of this car, even if you used it all up and there's nothing left to sell on.

In your shoes I would not proceed with this repair; it will cost less to apply more earnings directly to the next car rather than put money into this car to recover its value.

 

These kind of things get more interesting by the day the two generation threes and the four twos that we have here have had no air conditioning or heat or core problems maybe they happen on somebody else's watch but almost every repair piece of information has been in all four of these cars I don't see anything about radiators or heater cores or evaporator cores I have done these in older Toyota's back in the '80s a couple of times not near as bad but on a generation two I would just relegate that car to winter duty or something like that or it would sit quite a while before I got the wild hair to tear it all apart especially if it doesn't have all the good stuff in the car like leather interior and all of that I'm certainly not going to do it to a tan interior velor material car that's a throw away the minute you get it that's a work vehicle to get all nasty and dirty Not generally a keeper.

 

If it comes down to not wanting to spend a ton on repairs (if needed) there's always the last resort of leak stop. Although not always recommended, when a choice exists between scrapping it and trying leak stop, the leak stop should win every time. Just go with a good quality version. I've also seen people just bypass the heater core if the leak is not repairable or too $$ to fix. there's several ways to get additional years of use from the car, if needed.

 

Yes here in NC that car would not get thrown away It would just be relegated to other duties that's all there's plenty of time in the year here where I don't need the air conditioning and most of the time I don't use heat so the car would be far from scratch It would be used another 15 years parts running and doing whatever with it No way it'll get scrapped It just won't be traveled in in business clothes or any of that kind of stuff especially when it's 100° out.