So, as the title states, the vents in my car smell like crap when I have them on bringing outside air into the car. If I have the a/c on and it circulating the air over and over, it doesn't smell bad. Any suggestions on cleaning it or making it not smell anymore?

-Clu7ch

 

Either some mold/fungus settled in there or something crawled up in there and died.
you can either get a can of lysol and spray the entire can in the ouside vent whil it is on and blowing. If that does not solve the issue chances are something crawled up there and died. In that case you will have to take apart the vent system to get it out.

 

I had the same problem with my car shortly after the winter , I never found out what it was however u r right it stunk like something crawled into the vents and died. suggestion run the vents for a while and it will go away i did this for about 2 weeks and it finally went away . Also did you notice the smell is not present when you have the temp up( heat) ?

 

I don't believe it smells when the heat is on. It has been several weeks, so it's not just going away. I sprayed some fabreeze in there a long while ago. Didn't do much, almost seems it made it a little worse.

Well, on to the next step, Lysol. If that doesn't work, I'll be posting pics of what was in there. LOL!

 

Use Lysol its a disinfectant and will kill mold if there is any in there. fabreeze will just cover the smell up or make it worse.