DIY: How to Clean Your Car's Air Conditioning System in 10 Minutes

As the weather has just started to warm up, finally, I've started to use my car's air conditioning. But started to notice that it was smelling a bit when I turned it on in the morning after it had been on the day before. You know the smell, musty, old socks kind of smell, not nice!
So rather than going to the local car maintenance shop and spending £12+ on some air conditioning cleaner that doesn't work. That's right I tried one last year and it smelt nice and orangey in the car but that musty smell came back with a day or two. I decided to try something else much cheaper, £3 in fact from my local supermarket!

Having search YouTube I came across a video that someone had made about using a household aerosol disinfectant. The chap on the video was American and was using a brand called Lysol, but we don't have that in the UK. So on a trip to the local supermarket I found this; Dettol Disinfectant Spray.


How Clean the Air Conditioning System
First of all you need to find out where either your recirculate air duct is, inside the car. It's where air is recirculated in the car rather than pulling in fresh air from outside. It's usually in the passengers side foot well. If you put the recirculate on and turn the car fan up full you should be able to feel around and feel where the air is going.
Alternatively, like I did, you can locate the out side air intake for the fan. It's usually underneath the plastic shroud beneath the front windscreen wipers. On my Seat Ibiza it is just a case of unclipping the plastic and pulling it away and out. Yours may have some screws or require the windscreen wipers to be removed. On my car this revealed the pollen filter. I'd say remove this because anything you spray my well just be soaked up by the pollen filter! I simply took this out, by prising it out of the clips, which exposed the intake duct (you could see the fan inside!).
If you can see the fan and put your hands near, be careful the fan moves very fast and could hurt you!

Now you need to do the following:

• Start the car and turn on the air conditioning.
• Open all the windows in the car as this will get quite smelly and could be dangerous if inhaled!
• Turn the air conditioning down to it's lowest setting, cold as it will go!
• Turn the fan speed to it's maximum.
• Shake the disinfectant can and aim the spray in to the air intake, whether it is the recirculate or the outside intake.
• Spray around half the can in to the duct. I did this in busts of a few seconds at a time so that not too much liquid would build up near the fan.
• Leave the fan on full and air conditioning on for around 10 minutes.

That's it! If you took the outside air intake route then you will need to assemble this.

You may want to leave the car windows open for a few hours after performing this as it will be a fairly strong smell inside the car.

SAFETY
Be careful with Aerosols they can be dangerous.
Please note any warnings on the aerosol can.