I got in my car this morning and immediately noticed a solventy antifreeze type smell. The car is almost 3 years old (fabia 1.9 tdi elegance estate).

Does anyone know if fabias are prone to radiator leaks or anything else that might make my car suddenly smell this way? I am familiar with the smell of screen wash in the car when I wash the screen whilst ac is on but this is different. Its there even before you turn on the engine.

Musterlander

Hmm don't think there's a known radiator issue. May be wrong of course.

I did have a problem with my old polo where the tubing for the screenwash to the rear wiper would come undone. If it's been really cold lately and your screenwash isn't that concentrated, maybe under freezing conditions a join came undone and a bit of fluid has leaked in the cabin? On my polo, there was a junction by the rear passenger seat and fluid would trickly down the cable and form a little pond in the rear footwell

Had you just used your windscreen washers? That smell is probably the antifreeze in the washer fluid. The jets are just above the heater air intake and the smell gets drawn into the cabin along with the fresh air.

Does your rear wash/wipe still work. Give the rear washer a quick blip and see if water come out the nozzle. If not the pipe may have separated at one of the joints inside the car.

Check your heater matrix isnt leaking. You may find the carpet damp close to the airvent outlet next your feet

Check your rear left passenger footwell for moisture.

When my rear wash pipe leaked it leaked in to this footwell and gave off an anti freeze / screen wash smell.

If it is wet the rear wash pipe has come apart at an inline joint just in front of the rear left arch under the plastic trim

Never seen a Fabia heater matrix leak myself.

But plenty of screenwash pipes come off

Are you loosing coolant?