This is the first bit of warmth that my car has felt and I notice some pretty bad stench from the A/C.

Other than keeping dead bodies out of there, does anyone know how I can prevent this? I know I can get some deodourizing spray made for heating systems but my other cars never stunk this bad so soon. The car only has about 10k km's on it.

On a related note... Anyone else feel the A/C in the maxima is just wimpy?

 

hmm.. i think its the air filter thats wet, im not sure if its called that, but i belive its the microfilter thingy or sumthin and becuz its gettin warmer, the mold startin to form, givin that bad smell.. u kan take it out and dry it, maybe that will help.. im not too sure, just a guess

 

Nice idea but the problem is.. I dont have an air filter.

At least iam pretty sure I dont. I dont think canadian maxes have that as an option.

I'll doublecheck though

 

ummm.. im pretty sure all cars that have a/c have filter to filter out the dust, microorganisms and wutever...

 

same here.. my ac smells kinda weird too... my friend told me pour a little bleach where the air comes in run the ac till the bleach evaporates and itll kill the smell... has anyone tried this? where does the air come into the car?

 

Make sure you have the thing set on fresh air rather than recirculate. The air comes in through the outside holes that are located at the bottom of the front windshield underneath the wipers. You can spray some lysol disinfectant down there and let it sit. Then, run your ac full blast after a little while. It should get rid of any mildew or mold you may have down there. Careful not to get any lysol on the paint though.

 

Make sure you have the thing set on fresh air rather than recirculate. The air comes in through the outside holes that are located at the bottom of the front windshield underneath the wipers. You can spray some lysol disinfectant down there and let it sit. Then, run your ac full blast after a little while. It should get rid of any mildew or mold you may have down there. Careful not to get any lysol on the paint though.

 

Heh... mine smells really bad, but it goes away after a few min's of running the AC.... anyone have any concrete advice ??(i don't have the in-cabin micro-filter)... is the lysol safe??


I also would like to state that I feel the Maxima air-conditioning is wimpy.... i've been running it a bit over the past few days, and it's having trouble cooling NOW... imagine when summer rolls around... (NJ summer's are pretty warm!!) Personally, I suspect that this may be in some small way the work of environmentalists... First our electricity, and now this... **sigh**


-Tom

 

Some "concrete advice" IMO would be to leave it on fresh mode instead of recirc. I remember seeing it in Consumer reports or digest or something. But if you always leave it on fresh, then the smell should go away. You might want to take it in to your dealer to have them spray something, cause that's what I did with another car, and the smell went away after leaving it on fresh. I would think that Lysol would be safe per the instructions that were previously left in this thread. I know that the lysol will kill the mildew.

 

The A/C definitely has a unfresh smell the first couple of days...i've been running it the last two days in the 90+ heat in NY...its fine. Though i've definitely had a couple of friends complain about it and wanted to see in one case...when i got in i noticed a difference. Hmmm...now you guys got me wondering if this is a bigger issue than someone running out the coolant...another design issue? hmmm.

 

i havn't had any problem with my ac having a funny smell so far (knock on wood) but i do think the ac is kinda wimpy....it takes forever to cool the car off and neva actually get really cold....on my old car, i actually get really cold after putting my ac on for like 20 min during the midst of summer, but now it's nothing, still very cooling and refreshing.

 

Rerunn, there can be surprisingly little correlation between the age of a car and the presence of mildew in its HVAC plumbing. Your new Maxima stands as likely a chance of having a unicellular organism such as this land in its duct work as your old cars.

Blulite, I don't recommend pouring bleach into your front air inlets (located at the bottom edge of the windshield). Bleach is a strong oxidizer and may precociously degrade your plastic. However, it's this very property of bleach that makes it an effective disinfectant. If you absolutely must go this route, you should dilute the bleach with an equal amount of water, at the very least.

Tomz, spraying Lysol in the front air inlets might be enough to kill the fungus living in your HVAC plumbing since you said you only smell the mildew upon A/C startup. Alternately, you may want to run your engine until it reaches regular operating temperature, then run your A/C at the hottest setting for 10-20 minutes to dry out your plumbing and perhaps kill the little buggers as well.

The best solution, however, is to disinfect your evaporator core. It's kinda hard to describe the protocol without pictures and given my limited automotive knowledge. Here is the writeup from Haynes, for the 4th gen (5th gen should be no different):

• Unpleasant odors that often develop in air conditioning systems are caused by the growth of a fungus, usually on the surface of the evaporator core. The warm, humid environment there is a perfect breeding ground for mildew to develop.
• The evaporator core on most vehicles is difficult to access, and factory dealerships have a lengthy, expensive process for eliminating the fungus by opening up the evaporator case and using a powerful disinfectant and rinse on the core until the fungus is gone. You can service your own system at home, but it takes something much stronger than basic household germ-killers or deodorizers.
• Aerosol disinfectants for automotive air conditioning systems are available in most auto parts stores, but remember when shopping for them that the most effective treatments are also the most expensive. The basic procedure for using these sprays is to start by running the system in the RECIRC mode for ten minutes with the blower on its highest speed. Use the highest heat mode to dry out the system and keep the compressor from engaging by disconnecting the wiring connector at the compressor.
• The disinfectant can usually comes with a long spray hose. Remove the blower motor resistor, point the nozzle inside the hole and to the left towards the evaporator core, and spray according to the manufacturer's recommendations. Try to cover the whole surface of the evaporator core, by aiming the spray up, down, and sideways. Follow the manufacturer's recommendations for the length of spray and waiting time between applications.
• Once the evaporator has been cleaned, the best way to prevent the mildew from coming back again is to make sure your evaporator housing drain tube is clear.
  Haynes, J., and Henderson, B. Nissan Maxima Automotive Repair Manual. Haynes North America(1999):3-14.

You may also find this thread informative.

 

I've been thinking I'm doin somethin wrong with my AC because it seems like it takes forever to kick in.. I keep playing between manual and auto, sometimes it says manual and auto at the same time, eventually it gets cold but it takes forever and I don't wanna deal with NY heat anymore..

am i doing anything wrong or is it supposed to take a while to get cold????

 

I've been spoiled by my last car, a '91 Lexus LS-400 which had a more powerful a/c. My new Max, though, doesn't have the fan strength (or power) the old car did, so I can;t feel the breeze very well unless the vent is directed toward me (I never did that in my old car). The a/c compressor's output temperature, though, is plenty cold enough to combat the heat here in Houston.

Two suggestions: 1) open the windows, sunroof, etc, when getting in the car to exhaust the warmer-than-ambient air when you are just starting out; 2) consider getting the dealer to check out the a/c, since your 2K1 GLE is still under warranty. The dealer will likely take a thermometer to the a/c vents in the car, and say all is OK if the air blowing out of them inside the car is 65 degrees when the compressor is running.

 

Well, its good to know it wasnt just me that thought the a/c was a bit weak.

My old civic used to make my nads shiver and hug each other for warmth.. not my max.

 

i think it has to do with the newer refigerants they are using....The older cars AC's were cooler

 

yeah, i was in the shop the other day and some lady was quite animately complaining about her XTerra not being cold enough. the guy came out with a temp gauge and read it as 34 degrees, which is pretty much normal. i talked to the guy who was helping me out and he said that anything below 34 is running really good. but then he admitted that the older systems (which were probably less environmentally friendly) were actually colder. but even then the lowest he's ever seen was 31. the lady wanted it at 20!!! the service guy laughed at her saying that she'd be dead at 20!

 

oh yeah...

i actually used Lysol on my old '92 Camry and it worked quite well. also a nice place to spray was into the (possible) intakes on the bottom of the front seats. that seemed to have helped.