Smelly car (BMW)

VfM4meplse

neilmcl wrote: »

Exactly which model?

320d, 2L, 5 door saloon.

I dread to think which airborne bugs I have been inhaling. Am definitely leaving the AC on now!

neilmcl

VfM4meplse wrote: »

320d, 2L, 5 door saloon.

I dread to think which airborne bugs I have been inhaling. Am definitely leaving the AC on now!

SE, Sport, Efficientdynamics (with/without BP option)?

Iceweasel

The extra humidity in winter that I was referring to was inside the car, rather than the humidity level you would hear of in general in say a weather forecast.

It's often high inside the car because of damp clothes, wet boots and shoes, an umbrella in use on the way to the car etc.

So I use the AC compressor all year round and I think on say a 2 litre engine the fuel element is pretty small %age wise. On a smaller engine obviously it would sap more power from what the engine has available.

But I would reckon that a 10 minutes a week would keep the seals from drying out and leaking the refrigerant, if you really want to use it as little as possible.

We have 3 vehicles with various types of AC - one of them 10 years old and another 15 years old - they have never needed a gas top-up, which I put down in part to the fact that the ACs are in pretty constant use.

The folks who don't use their AC at all for 6 months or more generally find that the efficiency has dropped when they come to use it again the next summer and they need a re-gas or even more expensive work done, thus costing more than any fuel they may have saved.

Edit: I meant to say that I change the cabin filter / pollen filter once a year, in the springtime as the position of these filters often means that they can become damp over a typical UK winter. That way I start the coughing and sneezing hay-fever season with a fresh filter.

prowla

The a/c can emit a stale smell; a garage put an air bomb in my car (BMW), and it seems to have improved it.

VfM4meplse

Just a quick update - I haven't noticed the smell since, but ave taken your advice and let the a/c running. Also, that was the chilliest morning we've had for a while. I use the car intermittently only so will keep any eye on it for now.

Thanks for all your advice, its obvious there's a wealth of knowledge on this board!

gilbert_and_sullivan

TrickyWicky wrote: »

I was just thinking that.. cat pee poured into the scuttle by a miffed neighbour will stay with the car forever.

Its no good, this is going to plague me for weeks if i don't enquire and i don't really want to know the answer but oddly feel compelled to ask.

How did you collect a sufficient quantity...ANY...of cat pee, still in liquid form as in not soaked into a cat litter tray, to enable a pourable amount.

I mean, if thats your thing all well and good, its a free country so long as no animals were harmed in the making of this cat pee production.

:eek:

Richard53

It doesn't have to be a nasty neighbour. Our cat gets everywhere at night and I often see her footprints on the car. I think she likes the warm bonnet over the engine. And the intake for the aircon is only a few inches away ... if she got desperate