General Smell of Rotten Eggs

[Bellagio]

Evening all. I've noticed a smell of rotten eggs that seems to come through the heating vent now the colder weather has arrived and I've switched the heater on. Any ideas what this could be. My local main dealer want £99 + VAT to take a look. The car is a 63 plate 500L Trekking. At first I thought it was to do with the air conditioning needing cleaning/re-gassing but now not so sure.

 

[varesecrazy]

Hi.

You can buy a DIY aircon 'bomb' cannister for @£10

Google ' normfest aircon'

Read about ' duckbills' here on FF too.. gets the damp out of the cars air intakes

Charlie

 

[Ralf S.]

Go for a drive that's long enough to get the car up to temperature and then turn on the heating to MAX. Leave it at MAX, as you drive around, for a good 20 miuntes or so.

You don't need to have the fan on high, since the hot coolant from the engine will flow through the heater matrix and heat it up.. but a low fan will blow warm air through the vents and dry out any dead frogs/mice that might be decomposing in there.

Similarly, if you haven't used the air-con' for ages, then to cool down from the 20 minutes ^ put that on to get the gas pipes freezing cold, which will kill off any bacteria/mould in the a/c system. It's good practice to exercise the a/c for at least 5 minutes a week, to keep the mould away.

You should find the smell gradually gets fainter and eventually goes away.


Ralf S.

 

[Bellagio]

I’ll be happy if it is something like this as was reading horror stories of blocked fuel filters, blocked DPF or cats etc. We do have the air con on a lot and it never seems that cold so might require a re gas. The smell only seems to have started since the outside temperature has dropped and we’ve used the heating. Will give the above suggestions a try.

 

[varesecrazy]

Let us know how it goes..

Does the car do long journeys.. or just ' short hops?

 

[everson38]

I had something like this happen 5mto me and I thought it was the heater or something AC like. In the end it was windscreen w8per bottle and the water had.become stagnant. Give that a.smell first before buying anything. Could be a free fix.

 

[Bellagio]

And the winner is everson38! I opened the screen wash reservoir and it stank of rotten eggs so I used the screen wash until it ran out. I then added new screen wash and blasted some through and now it's smelling great with no rotten egg smells! Thanks again.

 

[varesecrazy]

Was this just a normal screen wash mix?

 

[Bellagio]

We only bought the car in July so am not sure what the previous owner had used. We did some tests today with the heating on full and then aircon on full and no rotten egg smells until we squirted the screenwash then the smell of rotten eggs came straight through. I’ve now bought 3 x 5L of Halfords -10c screenwash fluid for £9 (buy 2 get 1 free). Now I’ve flushed the old fluid out the bad smells have gone! The Halfords fluid is pre mixed and supposed to smell of berries.

 

[everson38]

And the winner is everson38! I opened the screen wash reservoir and it stank of rotten eggs so I used the screen wash until it ran out. I then added new screen wash and blasted some through and now it's smelling great with no rotten egg smells! Thanks again.

Lol I'm glad you got it sorted. As I said same thing happened to me and I was on YouTube watching numerous a.c. vids and messaging the fiat forum gods for help. My issue was I was just us8ng water, screen wash always now. It is true what they say, start with the easy job first and work your way up.

 

[varesecrazy]

There is a risk of bad stuff growing in the toasty warm conditions..

Even Legionnaires outbreaks have been attributed to neat water in the screenwash system..!!

 

[Ralf S.]

I think the stinky comes from using concentrated screen-wash, diluted with tap water, since concentrated screen-wash (when it's stored in the factory plastic bottle) does not de-generate or de-compose, even after years.

I presume "ready to use" screen-wash is diluted out by the manufacturers using distilled water (otherwise why does it cost so much? ) but if they just dilute it using their mains water then that could suffer the problem too.

So I'd guess that if you were flush enough to be able to mix up your screen-wash using distilled water that you wouldn't have the problem (although you would need to disinfect your reservoir first, to kill off any mould or bugs that's in there forever now.. Ahhhh

I recall (or imagine recalling) that there is some mould that can survive in methanol and/or propanol (the latter being the active ingredient in sceen-wash).. which is a bit alarming, since propanol is also used as a disinfectant in those hand-sanitizers they use in hospitals etc. Ahhhh Ahhhh

The mould/bacteria produces hydrogen sulphide as it digests the propanol, so it's nit just causing a stink, it's technically eating your car.


Ralf S.