I've just purchase a certified pre-owned 2002 E320. It is in excellent condition (42500 miles) except that the interior smell is making me cough when I start driving. Its seem to be coming from behind the dashboard area. I not sure. I've tried using Lysol , Febreeze and other disinfectants. The disinfectants will last a couple of days. Do you think a Professional detail shop could help? Anybody experience this?

BG Products has a product that you spray into the AC vents that neutralizes odors... I have never used it but it might do something it is commercial grade...

http://www.bgprod.com/home.html

look for a dealer by you..

How about replacing your cabin filter? (search on buy parts/fastlane under "climate control", once you found your year and model)

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09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

You might want to make sure it is not a flood car. A lot of those around. Hopefully the certified process looked into that but you didn't say who "certified" it.

Mike

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1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
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probably would be helpful to identify the smell and/or origin prior to treating the
symptom vs root cause. in the interim, the other suggestions are good also....
including running with charcoal filter, or swapping out cabin filter -- even sprinkling
layer of baking soda on top of the filters, in hopes they'll neutralize, somewhat,
the offending odor. but yes, if mildew cause...or from A/C, treat the cause.
if vinyl, or air intake duct or user induced (accidentally), treatment will vary, natch

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-- raymond~
47º 34'N 122º 18'W

Is that a W211 chassis??? they have had 3 bulletins on that problem.

The 2002 car in the US was the W210 chassis & they didn't have that problem.

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When you park it, place plates of baking soda on the floorboards and in the trunk area. Change the cabin filter. Also what sometimes helps is leaving all the windows down for a few weeks whenever possible.

It could have just been smoke bombed recently since you just bought it. Smoke bombed cars always make me gag for awhile after it happens. During that process, they run the air conditioning system to let the chemicals circulate.

There are a lot of flood cars on the market, some are better than others. Most likely, yours is not one of them.

-GH

Once talking with a mechanic at the stealership I've heard the story of rodents (namely rats or squirrels) making nests in air ducts...

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