Good news Radu, I expected this to end with you selling the car, good to know you managed to get rid of the smell.

 

Good news indeed.
Long journey - glad it's behind you.

Mike

 

I'm assuming you have already stripped and cleaned out the evaporator box.
Make sure the drain tube is not blocked or your problem may return once the box fills with condensate.
Good to hear it's ok now and waxoyl isn't a bad smell but that will clear.
regards
John

 

Good on ya', Trilapis. I knew you'd stay at it. And proudly done. Interior odors can be dealt with in a number of ways. Some even successfully. My suspicion has been the seats or carpets. A good place for a dozen broken eggs to wind up. Your new gallon of paint rolled off the front seat and crushed the eggs on the floor. Who knows. Anything could have wound up in the seat or carpet foam.

Good Luck, Trilapis.

Jip

 

 

Come on folks, it's the final step! The final battle! Whan can be the cause of the ventilation installation smell?
Recap:
Plenum filter - changed
All three ventilation units - completely dismantled, cleaned, isolation changed.
Drain pipes - free
Evaporator -cleaned - here I think there's the catch. Somebody was saying that maybe the evaporator material catches the smell and maybe I should order the "cooling coil coating" as mentioned in this thread (check procedure pdf)?
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/a...05-ac-odor.pdf

Other than that I have again ran out of ideas. Any hvac part that might be the culprit? Not that it's not great that I can now drive the car, but to do it without cooling and heating it's gonna be a little tricky.

Thank you

 

Hi Guys,

I guess this post will put an end to this rather long thread.

So after talks with Jaguar, from which i learned that the material from which the evaporator/heater core are made is prone to mold developing, i performed a professional disinfection of the hvac system, both on heating/cooling settings.

The result is ok. The ventilation smell is almost gone. The smell in the car is somewhere very faint, yesterday i spent three hours in a horrendous traffic jam and yes, i felt a faint smell of the car on my but hey, you can feel that after driving any car, right? I mean, the smell catches on you. Any smell.

As the spring arrived, i'll start to use it a lot, to use the ventilation system and hopefully the smell will be gone for good. Anyway I have no other idea about what to do more that what I did.

Thank you all great guys for the great advice and one more question: do you know why the key fob goes out of pairing? Would that be the fault of the security module? )) Finally back in Jaguar problems land.

 

Trilapis;
Just as a final attempt, you might want to give the Ozium a try. In my case a quick toot at night, which is perfumy. The next day, all scent is gone. That is, if the scent 'can' be gone. Again, just a thought.


Jip

 

 

Well, Trilapis;

It sounds like you've done about all you can do. It sounds like the smell is reduced to a more livable stage.
This is what I do, now that you ask. I have a 1988 Oldsmobile I've owned for 12 years. It had been chain-smoked in for it's previous 18 years. Also, is the '05 XK8. A non-smoker. A buddy gets in who's just had his cigarette. No big deal. And yes, the car does retain a little cig scent. It also will pick up pizza scent and Mexican food scent. To kill that I spray about one seconds worth of Ozium into the rear seat area. Then close up the car and forget about it. Like at night. The next day is the scent of fresh leather. Or if you're driving somewhere and can leave the car for a half hour while shopping, another quick toot. Let's think 'duration' now. Just keep using it. Every night. Just a one second spray, then leave. Ozium comes out as a strong perfume, but goes away in just a few hours and takes with it what smell might be in the car. Don't empty a whole can in it. Give it time. The Olds is free of cig-smoke, but it tries to sneak back now and then. Tell us what happens in a week or two.
Give it a try, Tri.

Jip

 

Hi Jip,

Yes, I'll do that. The only thing is that I was re-reading this whole thread the other day...There were so many kind people that pointed that the problem resides in the heater matrix and the evaporator...And i was so sure we cleaned them thoroughly...Seems that we didn't use the right substance - maybe we should have sunk everything in chlorine. I don't know. But that is for sure the source of the smell. Even with the ventilation off like once every 30 minutes a "wave" of smell comes from behind the dash. But you're right. It's livable - unfortunately not sure my wife will want to get in - and hopefully will fade with time.

For sure I'll enjoy it like this until november or whenever the cold season will start. And then we'll see.

Ozium works but somehow the other smell comes "from behind" and manages to linger. Guess the spray does not reach the evaporator/heater in enough quantities.

 

Hi Radu,
This is a post I made to you last year. I suspect you did not use this product. Perhaps it is not available where you are. I am so pleased with this product's performance that if you pm me I will gladly send you my full spare can - free of charge. I used one can and have not needed it since.

"Radu,
You're not going to be happy until 100% of the stink is gone. I don't know how your detailer cleaned the HVAC system without dismantling it. There is still a possibility some of the smell is from the AC. This is the text of a post I made a couple of years ago. The smell in my car has not returned but I keep a can of the stuff on hand just in case. It is that effective! ....
Right after I bought my XK8 I noticed a pretty foul smell when the a/c was on. I searched high and low for the cause. Cleaned the drip vent, which didn't need it. Cleaned vents at base of windshield. Opened the dash to get at the diffuser box. Couldn't find any reason for the stink. But the odor was bad enough to keep me from using the a/c unless it was raining. On a chance I bought a can of air conditioner duct cleaner from AutoZone. Shot half of the can into the vents at base of windshield and the rest directly into the cabin air intake under the dash on the passenger side. Immediately I was sorry I did. The perfumey smell was worse than the stink. For the next day or so I had to drive with the windows open. And then ... like magic ... all the smells disappeared. I could not have been happier. There was absolutely no smell even when the a/c was on high. That was about a year ago. Yesterday I noticed just a hint of a watery smell returning, so I stopped by AutoZone and bought the last can they had in stock (being sort of a seasonal item there was none on the rack, but the clerk found it in the back). If you've been plagued by a similar stink, give it a try. Comes in a skinny green and white can with a short nozzle for directing the spray. The manufacturer is IDQ and the name on the can is A/C & Heater Duct Cleaner. $7.99 and worth every cent. Someday maybe I'll find the cause of the smell, but for now this'll do.

Good luck. Smells stink!

John"

P.S. I actually didn't need a second treatment. I think the smell returning was my imagination. One can was all it took to clear the air.

 

 

This is the product I was referring to. Looks like the manufacturer changed their name from IDQ to Interdynamics:

Good luck!

 

Hello All,

As when I started this topic I was out of solution and didn't really think I'd be able to find one, almost two and a half years after, finally, I can say that this bloody smell is gone and the problem is SOLVED!!!

I would like to thank each and every person that dropped a reply here, each of has given me directions and clues that finally helped me to accomplish my endeavour.

Thanks to all of you, it was just a time consuming, annoying and stressful project, I managed to keep the money spending at a minimum.

Finally, the residual smell was not in the HVAC, nor in the seats. Actually the solution finally made me understand how one should deal with mold. It's actually pretty easy. As long as there's humidity, mold will have food and will continue to exist.

So in fact the problem was that water was still leaking through the door sealings and keeping the floor moist, just a little moist, almost unnoticeable. enough for it to emit that annoying smell that was catching in the clothes and hair.

It took two nights of leaving the car in a car paint oven, at around 65-70 degrees Celsius and a tuning of the doors, to stop the leak.

That was it. The smell is now completely gone.

Again, thank you all for all the advice, and a special mention to Gus, that managed to keep the spirits up when the going got tough.

Cheers!

 

I remember this saga quite well. Glad you finally solved the issue. Happy motoring....

 

Great news! Was it the rubber seal around the door frame or the hidden leak through the door/roof gutter in the end? Both leaked on mine. Thought I'd cured it with the door seal but found the carpet was still getting damp from the insidious leak from the gutter seam running down behind the trim to the floor. Not a great design, forming a drain by screwing a metal strip and seal to form a v shaped channel.
Now you can enjoy it 😁
Cheers
John

 

It's great to hear that you finally closed out this Saga!