Well with the temperature starting to go up to the high teens this last week or so I've felt the need to run the air conditioning - but then discovered why I didn't use it much last year - because when I switch it off there's this dreadful smell for about ten minutes or so. Smells like hot electric elements. Aieeeee!!! Not another smelly summer (the air con, not me ).

Anything I could do to stop this, that doesn't involve a trip to my favourite Skoda shop?

SR

:huep:

With windows down, recirculate OFF, fan blower on medium speed, A/C ON...

Spray window cleaner mist liberally into the air intake grille (on the scuttle panel between the bonnet and windscreen).

The window cleaner solution will evaporate, be sucked into the blower intake, condense onto the cold evaporator fins, and the ammonia in it will kill the mould and bacteria that's built up on the fins. It will take at least a day or two for the smell to go away completely.

I used to do this on my Nissan Sentra years ago, and when I started getting the bad smell on the Octavia I used the same procedure and it works great.

I always try to switch off the A/C, but leave the blower running, about a minute before I've gotten to my destination so that the evaporator has time to dry out and help prevent future build up of mould on the damp evaporator fins.

By the way there are commercial solutions to fixing this problem. I remember one solution described by a VW technical bulletin involved using a commercial product, Airsept, to solve the bad odour. FYI Airsept contains water and ammonia. Imagine that.

Sounds good, I'll give it a go this weekend. Any particular brand of window cleaner? - ours are all blue-ish colour and smell quite nice, so not sure if they've got any ammonia in them. I suppose I could tip the bottle of Windowlene down the scuttle.................. Mrs SR has had the same bottle from Fine Fare yellow lable (remember them?) for about 20 years but doesn't use it now, so this might get rid of it

SR

cok guzel kouuyor