Now that summer is here with warmer weather, I see a number of people talking about moldy smell coming from the AC and the need to replace the cabin air filter. It sounds like the cause of this is using the AC on hot day and then leaving the car without "drying out the AC" (which may describe as needed to turn on the head, turn off recirculation (if it was on) and run for 10 minutes). It sure would be nice if there was a feature/software update that would sense the difference in cabin and outside heat and if necessary, perform an "AC filter drying cycle" when passengers exit the vehicle to prevent the mold growing environment. The only car I've ever owned that gets better with age ;-)
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Intelligence to dry cabin air filter
- Thread starter photojon
- Start date
There are reports that this was implemented a couple releases back. I haven't tested it, but some have reported that the hvac system runs the fans for several minutes after parking. It's not really clear when it kicks in as it's not in the release notes. It probably runs the fans if the A/C was on some preset time before parking.
I've had this issue with previous vehicles so I do it manually when driving any of my cars. I'm definitely not going to let the mold ever take hold in the Model 3.
I've had this issue with previous vehicles so I do it manually when driving any of my cars. I'm definitely not going to let the mold ever take hold in the Model 3.
Kilotango74
Active Member
How do you do this manually? You sit in the parking lot after arriving to your destination and let the fan run?
Set A/C and recirculate off with the fans running for the last mile or two home for all my vehciels. If I forget in the model 3, I leave the system on with a/c and recirculate off. Then I turn it off via the app maybe 10 minutes later. If I forget in other vehicles I just sit there and let the fan run for several minutes before going in lol.
Kilotango74
Active Member
Oh yeah, I learned this trick because of my BMW. When starting it car, it welcomes me with the funk.
It all started because my wife would use the "Max" button which turns recirculate on and she would just park the car in the garage. The poor drainage in BMWs plus the hot engine was a recipe for mold.
I'm curious whether or not this has been implemented. I saw reports that it has and also others it has not. When I called Tesla service, they said a fix is being worked on but hasn't yet been implemented.
I've been looking into this a lot lately as I'm one of many with smelly AC. If it has been implemented already, it doesn't seem to work well - I've seen a lot posts recently with the AC smell issue. In such an automated car, it's funny that the AC evaporator needs to be manually dried so as to not smell like the inside of a gym bag. On top of all that, you can't even get replacement cabin air filters due to backorder.
Well if your ac currently smells the current mold in your system needs to be cleaned out first. The auto or manually running fans is a preventative measure, not one that cleans the actual mold.
This is a common issue across all vehicles
Lasairfion
Member
Perhaps Autoglym Aerosol AC Cleaner to solve the short-term problem and Valeo Wasabi d'Air for long term prevention?
The mold smell has been cleaned and no longer smells. However, I'm asking/wondering more out of preventative future measures - I don't want to have to repeat every few months. While I see others with the problem on ICE cars, I've been lucky to never have it happen on any car I own. With the model 3, it happened in less than 1 year of ownership. If there's a software fix to dry the evaporator, great - I can continue using auto AC mode as it is intended. If there isn't a fix or it doesn't work well, I'll apparently have to do a more manual dry.
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