Air vents smell funky after turning AC off?

that could be it. it does seem to be a lot worse when there's pollen outside. i didn't notice it much over the winter but i also didn't use much A/C so it's hard to say.

 

Normal. AC creates condensation in the vents, and if it does not dry it will turn musty and moldy.

No matter where you live (dry or not), always good to dry your vents by blasting hot air through them for 5 minutes. With the blower on high setting too, and cycle through using all the vent positions.

Toyotas in my experience are a little more finicky about it.

I would get the same with all my previous brands of vehicles, but more so with our Tacoma and Rav4.

Mine is 2016, about 75K miles. Every summer we go through this exercise, but blowing hot air to dry the vents mostly eliminates it. I have never cleaned my vents once with anything, and smell is not an issue other than what I get if I don’t dry the vents with hot air.

Plus I am offroad a lot, so the truck sucks up a lot of mud, dust, and rain and snow. Just dry the vents with the hot air setting after every AC use.

 

I've heard you can enable an "afterblow" setting in a lot of cars which blows air through the vents for a few minutes after turning the car off. I wonder if you can do this in a Tacoma via Techstream.

 

I always left the air running a few min after turning off the AC, but never tried hot air. Great idea. It’s going to suck since it’s regularly 100°+ here in the summer but worth it to keep the vents free of mold.

 

I just used my AC today for the first time in about 6 months. Yup, as soon as I turned it off a pretty powerful musty odor. I let the blower run on high heat for about 5 minutes and cycled through the vent settings. That eliminated the smell. You will likely need to do this every time (I do) to keep the vents clean. I turn off my AC each time when I am 5 minutes from my destination and run the heat, and this has worked for the past 4 years now.

 

Op, I live in south Florida and almost everyday I blast max heat on my ac 2 mins before getting home.. never had odor issues… make it a habit

 

Hmm, I’ve never heard of this process. I’ll continue to not punish myself with a blast furnace session in the summer months

 

Anytime I have smelled a funny smell from the HVAC vents, replacing the filter has eliminated it. I run A/C year round and never 'dry' out the system when I stop. After 5 plus years, the filter has eliminated any smells.

On a side note, I found that the stock filter had the worst smell and have been using the Fram Fresh breeze filters ever since with great results.

 

which Fram fits, is it CF10374?

$14 FRAM Fresh Breeze Cabin Air Filter with Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, CF10374 for Dodge/Toyota Vehicles

https://www.amazon.com/CF10374-Fres...breeze+cabin+air+filter+tacoma,aps,139&sr=8-1

 

Yes, that's the one.

 

count me in… I do punish myself with heat when it is 95f outside… my ocd won’t let me not do it… on the positive note, I get home direct to the shower so it is not thaaaaat terrible..

 

Fwiw running the system on heat likely just warms the ducts up so they don't potentially get condensation; outside air, warm air, and hot air carry more moisture than cold air.

By turning the AC off you are actually putting moist air INTO the system. In fact the only system that removes moisture is the Air Conditioner, this is why it is part of the defrost/defog system. But, if the ducting is cold it could condense as the truck sits, leaving puddles of water, running warm air warms the ducts themselves and I can see that keeping that from happening.

The AC coils inside the dash also get wet when the AC is running, this water is directed to the drain system though and should not cause a smell unless the drain is clogged.

 

I’ve found that if I take the a/c off the recirculate setting before I shut off my truck the musty smell is negligible when I start it back up.

 

Are you joking? You guys get a ton of rain in the Pacific Northwest don’t you?

 

In some areas we are in a rain forest, but there are also areas of desert in Oregon, Washington and B.C.

 

only 9 inches of precipitation per year where I’m at (mostly in the winter as snow) with summer days regularity 95°+. Not all of the PNW is Seattle.

 

I have the same experience and I'm in AZ. Every vehicle I've had with AC for the past 23 years has had a smell to it if i don't turn off the AC and just blow the fan/warm air.
It's pretty normal as far as i'm concerned.

 

It does make a difference where you live - warm/humid, hot/dry, use A/C often/not.

I have a 2017. I live in eastern Pennsylvania. The problem shows up every year when I first use the A/C in the spring. It happens when the A/C hasn't been run for six months(even though it is used during defrost mode). I get a huge god awful blast of mold stench. This past winter I kept the blower running all season to help. It did not help. I have become more sensitive to mold in recent years. Immediately my sinuses burn and I feel pain in my ears. My daughter has a immune deficiency illness and is very sensitive to mold.

The cabin filter has nothing to do with the mold problem. Spraying a lysol type product will only mask it and won't clean/kill it. Not using recirculate does help. But it is not a cure. I've noticed people in a warm climate report they don't have the problem as much. That is probably because they use the A/C year round( system is constantly flushing), or, they live in a hot dry climate where very low humidity doesn't create moisture.

I cannot feed the cleaning tube up the drain hose due to a 90 degree connection at the top of the hose. I have to remove the blower and blast foam evap cleaner in the system a couple of times to keep it clean. Either way; Once mold gets in there, it is impossible to kill it since you cannot access the evaporator. It will grow back. My dealership says they do not use the Toyota refresh kit.

There have been multiple lawsuits for other Toyota vehicles.

 

I say just don't use recirculation AC mode a lot and it should stay fresh smelling

 

Seems to be a thing in arid climates. I never noticed it with any of my vehicles whenever I lived in PA, but since moving to AZ, they all do it when you turn the AC off