I have a 2016 IS 300 FSport with 26K miles on it. Recently changed the filter and it smells initially when the AC is turned on. Is this normal after you swap out the cabin air filter?

 

Does it smell kinda dank?

It could just be that there's moisture in your hvac.
Try running the ac fans at full hot and max fan speed, without AC and on recirc. leave your windows open and let it run for 5 minutes.

my ac system have moisture that gets stuck in them every now and then and I just run the fan on recirc with the windows down and it usually solves my issues.

 

I will try this. How often does it happen to you?

 

It happens to me quite often in the summer. Just have to remember to run open air versus recirc once in a while.

 

it happens pretty often. esp if i don't run outside air w/o ac for the last few minutes of my drive. But running recirc on hot helps, or just driving with windows down and recirc on helps.

To give you context, I'm in the San Francisco area, and I encounter alot of fog from just driving around. It's foggy in certain places even in the middle of the day so sometimes moisture getting into my hvac just can't be helped

 

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...the-vents.html

 

Had this issue, man was it awful. Smell would go away with the AC on, but running air without the AC engaged smelled like death. Fixed it fairly easily by turning the AC on, rolling all windows down, roof open, setting mode to fresh air, fans on maximum, and emptying an entire can of Lysol into the fresh air inlet duct near the passenger side wiper. Once the can was emptied, I left the system running on full blast for about 20 minutes to allow the Lysol smell to go away. All good now.