I have a 2005 s40 Turbo and when the a/c is on I can smell mold. I took it to the dealer and they said I had mold on the condensor and they unsure as to how to repair it. Is this a common problem?
Thanks

make sure a/c is on fresh air cycle so you are not simply recirculating the nasties - and use high speed fan for a few days and for sure dont smoke in the car

Hi,

I have a 2005 S40 2.4 and after last week (5days of nonstop rain) my AC smells the same; the smell is very (i mean very) strong and i am not sure what to do; i used the fan on the highest setting (for only 1 day) and the smell is a bit better but not much;
Did you manage to fix your problem?

nita

i hope it is not a general problem with S40s

Mould on air-con is common to most automotive a/c system designs I believe.

For the sake of your & your passengers' health, you need to treat the fungus/bacteria that build up. For example see http://www.air-care-automotive.co.uk/AB1.asp or do a Google search.

There are several products available out there & you can easily DIY, no need to pay premium hourly labour rates for a dealer to do it. Your dealer sound incredibly badly informed if they don't know how to treat it!

I treat the aircon in my & my wife's cars every spring.

For an idea of the sort of products available, see http://www.wynns.uk.com/contextra/Template...?sId=20&TopID=3 but there are several easy-to-use products out there.

Hope your cars are back smelling sweet & healthy soon!

BB
:beer:

I took my car twice to the dealership for the the mold problem and first time they just sprayed something to control the smell and the second time (about 10days later) they replaced the cabin air filter; I use lysol (a lot) to keep the smell/mold down and i think it is working; I tried to find the aircone cleaner here in U.S. but i couldnt find anyone that sells it; Just some on e-bay (ebay.co.uk); I will buy one to see if this thing works as advertised;

I've had similar posts before from forum members in the US & they've managed to find suitable products locally. Try http://www.properautocare.com/wuracheatsys.html for Wurth's offering.

Regards.

BB
:thumbsup:

Have the dealer check to see if the A/C drain pipe hasn't been disloged. If is does all the A/c moisture (the water that you usually see on the ground) goes to the floor of the car. I've seen one where that has happened, there would have been about 5+ litres swimming under the carpet.

BB,

I just got a similar issue with my AC. You wouldn't happen to know the location of the air intake were to use these products on the S40's 05...

Thanks, Greg

It depends on the product.

The easiest ones to use are supplied with a long tube that you feed into one of the central fascia air outlet vents.

Others you "set off" (with the air recirculation button depressed, the air-con on full blast, all windows closed & all but the front passenger door shut, put freshly shaken can on newspaper you've laid on the front passenger carpet, depress nozzle hard to lock nozzle open then shut the passenger door, leave car running for 5 to 10 minutes as per instructions & the mist will be sucked into the air-con system to do its stuff).

Others you need to open-up the system & spray directly onto the evaporator, but unless it's heavily moulded-up then this might be overkill, so long as you use a product that works as above at least once a year - I find that in the spring is normally best.

If you manage to find a good product that works for you, please do share with us what it is, where you got it & how much it cost!

BB
:)

Just a note here: I started running the fan only for about 2 minutes after I turn the AC off in My 2005 S40. (about 1 mile from my house). That has made a great difference. I do not have that strange smell from the climate system as long as I do that. I run the fan at about 1/3 full about the time I pull into my neighborhood and that has kept the condensation out of the system.

I do not think you could call this a "solution" but it does help and keeps the passengers happy on the weekends since everyone wants me to drive MY car when we go out.


:beer:

Absolutely. Regular use of the air-con system will slow down the development of bacteria/mould/fungus, that's why your electronic climate control is less prone to this problem (because it's normally on whenever the ignition is on, unlike air-con).

BB
;)

Thanks for all the good info!

Just a note:
Here is what's interesting. I tried couple of thing, I turned the fan on all the way, I used only the fan without air conditioning, I tried to open the windows to help air circulation, and nothing seems to make much of a difference until one morning.
I got the car out of the garage and the smell was gone!

I don't know what did it but it seems to be gone for the moment and it happen just like that.
My guess is that all I did help dried out the system preventing bacteria of an environment to proliferate.

Greg

Well, I tried everything and at the end I had to take my car to the dealership again (where it is now) and they had to order a new evaporator from Sweden; I was going through a can a Lysol every 4-5 days in the last 3 weeks so I believe that my car had something more than just mold, something that could not be fixed with what I tried (Lysol, fan on for 15 min with A/C off etc). I found out while browsing the internet for similar problems/solutions that my car was supposed to have the after-blow function on;
http://www.alldata.com/tsb/Volvo/113083200...N87-53/531.html
It was turned on about a month ago but made no difference what so ever mold-wise; I should get my car back on Thursday and then I will see if the problem is fixed;
This website

http://www.swedespeed.com/

has tons of Volvo-related info including tech bulletins and owner manuals; If you are interested in mold you have to type “musty” though to get some hits.

nita

I spoke too fast... The smell is back!
Now I'm back trying to fingure out how to fix this again.
Does anyone know were the A/C unit is located in the car. I hope it can be easily accessed.

I know it is the AC because it only smells when I turn it on, and smells less when I use the fan only. What I'm not sure to understand is that the smell doesn't last. It seems to go away temporarely after few miutes driving the car but comes back after few hours of none use.

I don't feel like going back to the dealer but I'd like to have this fixed and from what I'm reading it doesn't sound too promissing...<_<

Greg

even though it might not be the problem, check the outlet pipe (mentioned above) anyway. It happened to ours (June 04 model T5) and made a hell of a mess. I heard from the dealers that they had to fix about 3 of them - the pipe splits. I am not sure whether it was a problem peculiar to the first cars in the new model.

Peter,

You're right, I'll do that.
You wouldn't happen to know were that is (this outlet pipe) ?

Greg