Weird BO and Musty smell in interior
 

Before you judge, no it’s not coming from me. I stay funk free 😎😁.

On a serious note, lately I’ve been getting this weird BO smell, like a strange musty odor inside the car somewhere. I thought maybe the suede headliner is starting to degrade or possibly the interior panels might be giving off this odor, but I can’t tell for sure by a sniff test as it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the smell is coming from.

I did however get a slight wiff of it under the dash somewhere when I knelled down to check. I sprayed Lysol in the vents at the cowl, did the whole Ozium spray in the interior, and the smell is still there.

I keep my car very clean inside and don’t have anything that would cause this odor. Has anyone experienced this before? Could it be the A/C lines need to be cleaned out and deodorized?

Replaced the cabin air filter thinking that it could be the culprit, but it didn’t solve the problem either.

Thanks.

Take the cabin filter out and spay lysol or product to kill ac mildew smell in the direction of air flow in that opening with the fan running. Cross your fingers its not a dead cat under the hood.

It could be a water leak. I removed my passenger seat to deep clean the carpet and found water under the carpet. It took a while to track down, but the windscreen bonding had broken down and water was coming in near the top left corner of the screen and running all the way down the A pillar. I paid a local windscreen fitter to remove and refit the windscreen.

I didn’t think about doing that, thanks for that tip. Also I think it could be coming from the floor vents or defroster vents since I rarely if ever use the floor vents and the smell is coming from somewhere in the dash area.

A dead cat would be absolutely horrible in smell, thank god it’s just a little funky smelling in mine. Lol.

Good to know, I’ll take a look at mine. Thank you.

Likely a windshield water leak on the passenger lower corner, somewhat common with these cars and can eventually kill modules behind the dash.

I've also had debris build up under the engine cowling letting water spill into the air filter before. May want to check the air filter element after a hard rain and see if it's wet. Removing the cowling and cleaning the cavity isn't that difficult.

I had a musty odor coming from the vents in an LS430. Toyota sells a product, about $10 to $15 a can if I remember correctly, that is made to clean and deordorize the system. Followed the directions, did it a second time and the problem was solved.

So. That's an issue. How would I go about that myself? Hmm, first life the car and use a/c cleaning foam spray via tube into evaporator and heater drain hoses. Sometimes that works. Next I'd be taking wipers' cowl off, to see if there's rotting foliage stuck in there.
But if you have damp carpets - start with that. Roof drain or bad windshield sealing?

Be aware that the carpets are quite thick, and there's also a large chunk of polystyrene under there between the carpet and the floor. I had a puddle on the floor under the carpet, but the top of the carpet didn't feel wet. I hope you don't have a water leak from your windscreen but if you do, it's not as bad as you might think to get it fixed. The company that did it made me agree to them turning up with a brand new screen and having that fitted in the unlikely event that the original one broke when they removed it, but it came out and went back in again fine. I can't remember the price, something like £150. They did a great job.
To locate the leak I removed the A pillar trim and had a look with a torch during a rain storm, I could see the stream of water tracking down the inside of the screen at the A pillar.

You’re lucky you didn’t set the car on fire.

Oh, how'd we miss this, just gotta get a bunch of AXE body spray and nuke the inside. Can't smell bad things if you can't smell anything at all. :) I've used a combo of febreeze and cat/dog pee deodorizer to de-smell my rain soaked SC430 before. worked ok but the foam will always be stained.

Toyota sells a kit for this. The Car Care Nut did a video on it, but it's basically what you said about using a/c cleaning foam into the evaporator. When I worked as a service advisor many year ago, we used something called FrigiFresh in the cowl.

Try this. My Lexus dealer recommended it to me and it's great stuff. I even used it in my home and it eliminated the musty odor immediately. Used it a year ago and none needed since. I just sprayed it into one of the A/C outlet with the a/c on.

https://ozium.com/products/fogger-original

Just use spray nine, looks like it kills everything.


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