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Smell or odour coming from the vents
When the system is working correctly, the AC draws hot, humid air into the evaporator a cooling chamber that looks like a small radiator, where the drop in temperature causes theac smell in car
moisture in the air to condense on the cold fins of the evaporator.
So under normal conditions, the evaporator is wet.
Unfortunately Dust, hair, dirt and lint from the air that is blowing over the evaporator, also likes to stick to wet surfaces.
So we have condensing water droplets, that should help clean the unit, mixing with trapped debris, allowing mould and other nasties to accumulate and eventually blown into the cabin.
Special antibacterial products are available for the purpose of eliminating odour causing mould and mildew from your car’s evaporator unit.
We recommend that you allow us to carry out this service for you.
However, our recommendation is to have the evaporator taken out and cleaned, the advantage here is that the air passages are returned to as new capabilities and the system will again function correctly.

Sometimes I see a white vapour streaming from my car's air-conditioner vents?

Is it escaping gas?
Is it harmful?


Sometimes we see a white vapour coming from the AC vents, the system is still operating OK, is it refrigerant and is it harmful to me?

It is very unlikely that it is escaping refrigerant.

The refrigerant gas is not normally visible to the naked eye, for you to see escaping gas, it would have to be the liquefied refrigerant escaping, this would require a very large leak and most likely the system would have shut down before this would occur.

If this was the case, your system would become completely empty within an hour or two, most likely within minutes.

This white vapour you have seen is more likely caused by humidity, what you would be seeing is actually tiny water droplets that have condensed out of the hot, humid air, when it was cooled, it quickly disappears as it mixes with the air already in the cabin.

The vapour is not harmful and shouldn’t last long, but by switching to recycled air from inside your car will often stop water vapour forming