Something must have crawled into my car and died. It smells like rotting corpse. I have pulled out all the seats, the dash, center console, trunk, underneath the car. I cannot find this little bastard. Any ideas of where else I should be looking? The smell is overwhelming. Its an 02 WRX. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone in advance.
Check your Blower motor maybe a animal got caught up in there and died/sprayed all over. Also we have an Evap cleaner system that could help.
Less likely than it being in the air ducts but perhaps the headliner. My friend had about 5 lbs of random seeds/food/crap in his headliner.
In one car my friend bought for his higher maintenance girlfriend he found a 4foot long dead snake in the headliner. 3 dead mice (with a nest) and an alive ant nest. He had to gut the entire car and shampoo everything including the steel because of the mouse pee. He put it back together and she didn't notice any odor. He never told her about it either because she wouldn't have driven the car. My vote is you have some vermin in the blower motor/ducts.
Silly question, but how is the car running? I know in the old DSM world, when capacitors went bad, they stunk like rotten eggs. Then the car started doing funny things.
Yeah, but the rotten eggs smell is nowhere near what death smells like. One is just foul, the other is foul with this almost fruity type of smell to it. You really can't miss it once you've smelled it. My old roomates had a cat once that killed off her kittens and then hid them around the house, and i thought i got all of them, but the sneaky bitch managed to hide one under the entertainment center. And it smelled bad, just awful. We finally found it and got rid of it but it was hard to clean that out. So that's how I know what dead things smell like Anyway, I have been noticing a strange smell in my car too, and Jason told me it was something caused by the AC, it ALMOST smells like that, but not quite. It does enough for me to wonder if there's a rodent in there. Oh yeah, and remember folks, get your pets spayed so this doesn't happen to you
Stop burning the clutch. That's what my '02 clutch smelled like, before the jutter recall work. Although I am mostly kidding because the odor is there all the time. Hope you find it soon. I also had episode where "oh I left some Olive Garden leftovers under the seat" which also does not apply, since you've had the seats out. Can you smell anything when you are outside/next to the car, or only in the cabin?
Yeah I will check the intake, which is stock. Havent pulled the carpets yet. Car is running perfectly fine. The smell is for sure a dead animal. Not a rotten egg smell. Ill let you guys know what I find. Thanks.
Hay you checked the water discharge line from your ac yet if it gets clogged with leaves and other garbage you will get a rotting swap water smell
LOL! not this month. I FOUND IT!!!! it was a dead mouse. Crawled up into my passenger side seat cover and boy does it stink! Anyone know if these seat covers are ok to run through the washing machine? its just the stock cover.
EDIT! I talked with our upholstery vendor... He DOES NOT Recommend washing. He says if anything dry cleaning might work. Or just surface clean it really well.
Glad you found the problem! I threw my seat covers (front and rear) in the wash a couple times and they turned out just fine... front loading washer. ~Dan
