PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

BodhiBenz1987 · #1 11-15-2006, 11:19 AM

I suspect this is just something to have a good laugh at myself over, but I want to double-check. I'd been noticing a rather foul, musty smell in the cabin area whenever turning on the heat. Having read the many antifreeze leak threads, I feared the worst (and of course, began to worry that I was going to die of poisoning en route to work, or something morbid like that). Several time I stuck me face up to the vent to the left of the wheel and took a whiff. No smell. Odd. I tried to smell the air coming out of that vent several times and it never smelled. Finally last night I got home from work at 2 a.m., and it definately smelled in the cabin. But not from that vent. So I leaned over and sniffed the middle vent ... it reeked! With my face up near that vent, it suddenly occured to me what was about an inch in front of my nose ... the cheapo cup holder I hang on the vents to put my coffee in. Cheapo cup holder doesn't do a great job of keeping the coffee from sloshing on the holder AND into the vent ... any guesses what the smell might have been?

That said ... I want to make sure that the smell is in fact baked stale coffee (it does smell like it). I'm assuming that a leaking core never causes a smell to come from just one vent, assuming all vents are functional (mine are)?

And the next step ... how hard is it to disassemble the vent and clean it? It really is gross. I tried to clean it with a Q-tip and the Q-tip came out covered in black old coffee. I'm really not messy but I guess little slips of the java juice just strays into the vent now and then. I'd like to get rid of the residue. Is that a major undertaking? What does it involve?