MrBrett

I got this fixedin a day. Recharged and it works fine, but ever since it stopped cooling, now for the first few minutes, it smells like an old hay barn. YouTube has tons of videos saying spray Lysol into the intake and it'll kill the mildew and eliminate the problem. Has anybody else ever dealt with this? How to do resolved it? If you had a mechanic to it with some sort of flush, not just spraying into the intake, what did they charge for that? did you try Lysol spray and did it work?

Thanks

Clutchless

The Lysol spray works, but you have to remove your cabin air filter first to effectively get the stuff throughout your system. You can spray it though the center dash vents and the outside vents.
geek or
However, it is better to use nextZett Klima Cleaner which is designed for this purpose. I always have a can in the garage and you can get it from Amazon or a car detailing site such as Auto Geek or Detailers Doomain.
It is a spray foam that you direct through your center dash vents to clean the evaporator. You must remove the cabin filter first for it to get into the entire system to work and because it will soak into the cabin filter destroying it. Here is a youtube video
If you do not know how to change your cabin air filter see this

MrBrett

Hey Clutchless, thank you very much. That looks like a great solution. So many of the YT videos I've watched said to spray Lysol into the intake outside below the windshield. Klima Cleaner looks like an effective solution (no pun intended). I will try it. Thanks again!

Wilson2000

Check out the two-chemical solution in the thread link below. I believe Toyota stopped selling it, but there are a lot of other brands with the two-part system available on Amazon and Ebay. It fills the evap box/coil with disinfectant foam via the box's drain duct. Then, with the cabin filter removed, the second chemical removes odors from the rest of the system via the intake vents.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...freshener.html

Clutchless

You can do the same application with Klima Cleaner, use it through both the center dash vents and then crawl under the car and insert it through the drain tube.
You probably have to jack up the car to have enough room to find and access the tube. Always use jack stands when jacking up your car in order to be safe.

You could afterward spray Lysol through the outside vents below the windshield. That is what was usually done 25 years ago when there were not many available products for A/C mold issues. I recall being in the back office of a Honda dealer in the early 1990s because of an issue with my Civic Si and they had cases of Lysol for treatment of A/C mold as it was a huge problem on Hondas back then and that was the standard treatment.

Tootsall

You may also find that if you can remember to always switch the AC to fresh air only, (especially if it defaults to recirculated air on startup), the smell will stay away once you have sanitized it.

MrBrett

Thanks all. I've ordered the Klima Clean. Iprefer the idea of being able to do it all from the cabin instead of having to shoot it up the drain. And it looks like this effectively does that.

Wilson2000

You can try the disinfecting from above, but I doubt you will have any long term success in ridding the system of the smell. The majority of the bacteria/mold which are creating the smell live in the evap box and on the coils. You'll only be able to kill it by going through the evap box drain, and even then, it may take multiple applications before killing all of the bacteria/mold. Doing this will also ensure you don't have a blocked or obstructed drain.

As mentioned above, keeping the system dry is also important and there are a number of steps you can follow on a daily basis:

1. Keep the system on fresh-air setting as much as possible
2. Shut down AC a half mile from your destination and turn the fan to high
3. Park in a manner that allows the box to drain completely
4. Run the system in heating mode for a minute before shutting down
5. Make sure the system is in fresh-air mode when shutting down