Dead mouse; bad smell; help! ;;

The vent can be easily removed. Look for instructions at Prius MFD

JeffD

 

I can only relate to you our experience and what I did. Last winter we found that a rat was living in the engine compartment of our Tundra. This was a matter of days. I placed a poison block in the battery compartment and the rat was gone in one day. Left behind was the smell of rat urine in the ventilation system which smelled like rotten wood. I cleaned down the engine compartment and sprayed Lysol through the ventilation system and interior and opened the doors to air out the interior. This did not help much. Changing out the air filter helped the most along with continued Lysol spraying and airing out. Now I keep a poison block in the battery compartment of any vehicle that sits outside. These poison blocks make the rodent crave water upon injestion of the poison and leave so as not to die inside the car.

 

Talk to your Toyota dealer. When I purchased my 2006 I did not like the smell in the car. I took it in and the started the car with the heating system on full air and activated a can that released a mist of something[ they would not tell what it was] into the car. They ran the car for 20 min. before opening it. I have had the car for 3 years and it is still good. H

 

I suggest you do what the dealers do to mitigate AC vent smells. The dealer sells a 2 Spray Can kit of e-coil (evap coil under dash) cleaner. One can is cleaner. One is perfume. This kit comes with a custom hose on the cleaning can. This hose attaches to the e-coil drip tube (the tube under the car that allows condensate to vent out of the e-coil. Thats what makes the puddle under the car when AC on).
Once hose is attached you inject/spray the contents of the foamy cleaner can. The foam cleaner fills the e-coil box and quickly turns to liquid and drips back out. The other can is just powerful perfume you spray in the windshield water dam fresh air intake. I recommend not using this can as its just reeks of old lady perfume and will mask any true cleaning result.
You can either do this yourself which is a pain as the car must be jacked up quite high to reach the underside tube or the dealer will do it. Dealer is $100. Over the parts counter cost to you is $25 for both cans including hose kit.
I recommend you do that asap before dismantling the car dash. . You just may have a reeking e-coil.
Stinky AC as in Prius is common and smell is most commonly referred to as :Gym socks".
I have done mine myself twice so far in its 50,000 mile life. Both times during a oil change lube/tire rotate maintenance interval to take advantage of the hassle of jacking the car up.

Btw, this is really a maintenance thing to to prevent the drip hose from gunking up. That's a pain because if the hose clogs it dumps AC condensate on the passenger floor. You'll never know this is happening until the car starts stinking real bad and you find the carpet soaked. Real hassle.

 

I have a 2010 prius with 26k mile and I have had a dead smell in my car for a week or so. Today I had a dead car this morning due to the 12v battery in the trunk. So I bought a optima 12v battery designed for the newer prius models at advance auto parts. I just the code BATX. It's 199.99 with that code online I got $50 off. I pick it up at a store and installed it.. Guess what the dead fish smell came from the stock battery. It has a hole on the side with I little tube connected to it and from that little hole came a big smell. The smell is gone and the battery install was easy as hell. Lol, no dead animal in my car!

 

Will this apply to the OP case??

 

I just fished a dead mouse out of the HVAC system of one of our other cars (not a Prius). It was lodged near the cabin air filter in the dash. Since the Prius also has a cabin air filter, that's the first place where I'd look for things emanating a dead smell.

A lot of pet owners know of a product called Nature's Miracle. I wiped down the area where I found the mouse with it and the smell was gone within a day.

 

Never even considered this as the reason for the funny smell in my Prius... (I don't smell it, but the wife, kids and mothere-in-law do...)

I'll investigate.