AC duct cleaner/deodorant

I’ve got a foul smell coming from the AC ducts especially at start up.

Any suggestions on a good foaming ( or other type ) duct cleaner ? Thanks.

 

It's most likely a smell in your evaporator, not the vents. Toyota used to sell an evaporator cleaner and duct treatment, but I think they discontinued it. Subaru still sells one though, pick up some of this.

You want something like this,

$37 GENUINE TOYOTA APPROVED S.E.T. SERVICERITE AC EVAPORATOR REFRESH KIT 00053-00008

https://www.amazon.com/GENUINE-APPR...cleaner&qid=1564355120&s=gateway&sr=8-2-fkmr1

The big can you will use that tube and spray it into the ac drip line. Usually half the can at a time. Then once you do that, you let it drip everything out and dry a bit. Once that is done turn on the blower fan on high, and I like to set the heat on a little just to open the blend door to the heater core a bit. Go outside the truck and spray the odor treatment into the cowl. The blower will suck it into the cab and clean the vents. If you have a cabin filter make sure it's removed before doing that step though.

EDIT: Here is the Subaru kit, it's a little cheaper than the stuff on Amazon. But most likely the same stuff. https://parts.subaru.com/p/Subaru__/Climate-Control-Cleaning-Kit-1-Kit/49506092/SOA868V9315.html

 

Thank you for your very informative reply. I do appreciate it.

 

I have a can and setup I never used if someone wants to buy it cheap!

 

I removed the plastic trim under the windshield wipers and ran a tube into the ac air intake then while the fan was on high I sprayed Lysol into the tube. Worked great. Don't spray it all at once, more like spray, let fan run, spray.

 

@Running Man mentioned doing this just earlier this afternoon!

 

Cool, that makes two of then, thanks!!

 

just get a can of AC coil cleaner at home depot for $5.

Make sure to turn recirculate OFF before turning off your truck and wait a few seconds for the recirc door to fully open. This allows fresh air to remove moisture from the evap. It also helps to just turn off the AC for a little bit before arriving home to dry off the evap, again with recirc OFF. Recirc being left on is a quick way to get mildew in your evap.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/AC-Safe-Air-Conditioner-Foaming-Coil-Cleaner-AC-921/206740351

 

I have bad news for you guys: any spray or deodorant it is not a solution to clean vent system, but just mask one smell with another. Kind of like scent candle in a toilet - instead of stinking a shit it will smell like a shit in the forest.

Unfortunately out trucks did not came with cabin filter, so whatever that truck is inhaling it will stay in the heater and AC cores and in vents. When I was fixing my AC (cracked aluminium pipe going to expansion valve - that sucker cost 100 bucks) I had to get into guts behind the glove box. I found a mixture of leafs and mud inside ducts just in front of the evaporator. Evaporator was actually quite clean, I guess condensation is washing it quite well. But that mixture of dead leafs and mud was quite stinky - smelled like old pond.

The other day I had to remove some ducts for other electrical work and while I should not be surprised by amount of dust collected in last 22 years, I really was. The plastic vents were literally painted with thick layer of gray/brown fine sticky powder (this is non smoking truck).



Normal washing with garden hose did not clean it - I had to use bottle cleaning brush to get all that crap out.

 

I did something similar a few years ago and still don't have funk smell returning, so it worked.
Not telling you specifically parkvisitor even though I quoted ya, there can be a lot of moisture and humidity in the evap core box while we run AC especially in summer. This moisture not escaping the evap box soon enough is what leads to the wet funk smell we get after time. The best thing to do to keep the funk from happening in first place is to allow the fan to run on high but deselect the AC for last couple minutes of your drive/trip. This will keep the AC from removing more moisture in the evap box and allow the fan to blow high air through the box as well to hopefully get it to dry in there before your favorite smell builds. Hope this helps someone visualize what's going on when they get smelly AC. Truck is hot first few minutes along with evap box and so it's smelly with heat, as evap box gets cold smell goes away but those enzymes or whatever causes the smell is still there. Gotta kill that with Lysol or some other true odor killer not an odor masker. I'll shut up, enjoy

 

There is some saying about minds thinking alike or something like that...

 

All good info!!

 

If that’s all after the fan/blower I wonder if a shop vac in place of the blower while using a swab brush in the vents would work?

 

I used something similar to clean my evaporator while I had it out to replace the expansion valve. Even after hosing it down per the instructions I have a lingering, strong solvent smell in the cab when the fan is on.

 

It's reccomended that you run the AC with the windows down for awhile also. It takes a few days for the cleaner smell to fade, probably longer if there's a pile of stuff that absorbed it rather than having it flow out the drain tube. I like the idea of using a vacuum and it might help to augment that with compressed air in the vents before using the cleaner. Something like scrubbing bubbles might be able to loosen simple dirt/dust allowing it to be flushed out as well. Auto parts stores sell AC cleaners as well.

 

same, it went away after a while though. Maybe a month or two at most.