Cleaning a smelly aircon Fabia mk2

Today I decided to finally look at properly addressing my smelly aircon. The problem is common. When you turn off your aircon, an awfull smell fills the cabin a few minutes later, particularly noticeable for the front passenger.

This is because water condensed on the evaporator surface warms up allows a resident bacteria soup to become active and start farting as they multiply.

I have a RHD car with climate control so they may be slight differences. I used a cheap aircon cleaner (bomb) about £4 from the usual places. Some may disagree with step 3 but this is what I did.

Step 1. Remove the expanded polystyrene cover (stiff fibre cover on later models) in the passenger  footwell. Pulling down carefully to avoid breaking it, if it isn't broken already.

Step 2. Remove the pollen filter, pictures and instructions to do this are elsewhere on the forum. Maybe some kind soul will post a link. Clean out debris inside the housing, mainly tree/plant seeds in my case. Wet strong kitchen roll paper is what I used with some disinfectant. Only limited access is possible but removed/cleaned what I could.

Step 3. Refit the bottom filter support bracket/seal but without the pollen filter.

Step 4. Ignition on, turn on recirc, switch to Econ (no A/C). Check the recirc flap is open. This is the hatched flap in the pic below, under the housing in the top of the passenser footwell towards the door side

Locate the aircon bomb using best Heath Robinson skills so it points directly at the recir opening.

Step 5. Start engine, re-check recirc on, fan on medium, econ mode (a/c off), temperature to low. Set the bomb off spraying directly at the recirc intake and close all doors/windows. Leave for 5-10 minutes, turn off the engine and leave for a further 5-10 minutes.

Step 6. Refit the pollen filter. In my case as it was relatively  new I just cleaned it up with a vacuum cleaner.

Step 7. Refit the polystyrene/fibe cover

The reason I posted this is I never knew for sure where the recirc air intake was and previous attempts at using an aircon bomb without removing the footwell cover had not been that great at reducing the pong for very long.

Only time will tell if this attempt is better.

Edited 8 September, 20232 yr by xman