help dead animal smell in car

20 years ago

For the past week there has been a terrible dead animal odor emanating from my car! I have searched everywhere for the cause under my seats in my glovebox, behind my fuse box opening everywhere and have found nothing. I looked under the hood and pretty much just saw a bunch of stuff that i don't understand and therefore am too afraid to take apart because i wont know how God's name to put it back together. I did open the windshield wiper fluid tank and the smell was really bad in there. My boyfriend smelled it and said that it was "bad water". I know what death smells like and this is definately it! I know this is a wierd problem can anyone tell me what to do or how long it will take for this thing to decompose already and the smell will go away?

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Comments (7)

jemdandy
20 years ago
Maybe the drain tube for the Air Conditioner (AC) drip tray is plugged. These trays are known to grow foul smelling gunk when they don't drain. Have someone help you check this out.
andyf
20 years ago
Did a bird fly into your grill? That happens often, and you can find them near the rad.

If your car was stored for a long period maybe a mouse got caught in there somewhere. Try turning on your heater fan and see if it gets worse.

Next, get a 3ft section of garden hose and put one end close to your nose, and slowly probe in the engine compartment. Also another area is the under frame of the car, maybe you have a piece of roadkill stuck under there.
The wheelwell may have some of that thrown up into it, or in the threads of the tires(I get that with dog poop).

Andy
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I just read through ALL these helpful posts because our house has yet another dead mouse (drafty cabin in the woods with 2 cats that like to play with -- but not actually KILL -- mice). This time I think it went into our ceiling to die, and I know the smell goes away in time, but I wanted to share our successful strategy for past mice, especially because it's halfway between living with the smell and tearing out your wall/floor/ceiling. Find the place the smell is coming from. I literally go around sniffing power outlets, light switches, and gaps in the floorboards. If you find the animal, as others say, get rid of it and treat any lingering smell, great suggestions here. If you can isolate the smell to a specific section of wall -- like, once a mouse had died between two joists in our TV room -- seal off the outlets. We have used plastic wrap and tape, but since some of our walls are smooth, I actually slapped a big square of Glad Press-n-Seal over the outlet and light switch and left it there for a few weeks. Every week or so I peeled back a corner and sniffed, and when the smell was all gone, I took off the plastic. This time, the smell is in the ceiling and became stronger when I plugged up a hole by the wall with steel wool, so I realized it was leaking down out of big crack between two ceiling panels. I covered that guy up with a long strip of blue painter's tape and so far, so good. Off I go to place strategic bowls of coffee grounds around the house! Thanks for all the useful info.
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@Greatlakesmower, you are a genius! We had exactly the same problem, and it went on for years - a bad smell in a closet, that would come and go. There would be nothing for months or even a year and then, bam, dead animal smell again. I was up in the attic over the closet several times, and nothing. It happened again today and my wife thought to Google it and found your post. We realized that the smell isn't really dead animal (though it's close) - it's actually drywall patch compound that's getting heated up by the bulb! That stuff has a mild smell at room temperature, but it turns out when it gets hot, it's disgusting. We had a 100 watt incandescent bulb in the closet light fixture and swapped it out for a CFL. We're waiting for the smell to dissipate now, but we think our problem is solved, thank you!!!
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fuzzywuzzy
20 years ago
I once had a mouse that got into the washer fluid reservoir and drowned. Very unpleasant. Doesn't have to be a car that's stored for a period of time either - mine is used every day.
macmansd_yahoo_com
18 years ago
Help me too I am having the exact same problem. Just started the other day. Help me !!!!!
ky114
18 years ago
Do you have a car that uses Dex-Cool type anti-freeze (the orange stuff)? This can smell very much like a dead animal. When I flushed out the cooling system of my truck, which has Dex-Cool, my garage smelled like an animal died in it for a week afterwards. If you smell it in the car, there could be a leak in the heater core or under the hood, but I'd watch the coolant level for a while to be sure. Or maybe if you recently added coolant or had it changed, some could have been spilled down the side of the radiator or other part that gets hot.

Of course, you could actually have a dead mouse or something. The smell will go away in a week or so if it's a dead mouse.
jemdandy
18 years ago
It could very well be a plugged drain tube to the Air Conditioner drip tray as mentioned in a post above. One more place to look: Open the air cleaner box, lift out the air filter and take a look/smell.

A carcas in this location would not circulate through your heater/AC system, but may smell to high heaven under the hood and up front behind the grill around the air intake for the engine.

(You did not run over a skunk, or a bevy of skunks did you now? Been there, done that!)
john_g
18 years ago
From the strange but true file...

I had a customer bring her Buick Riviera in for a bad odor inside the car, dang I just realized this was almost twenty years ago... VBG.... Anyway, it was such a foul odor, and so strong it would make everyone that got into the car start to get sick. The only solution since the odor was everywhere was to quickly pull out the back seat, and the deck tray to improve air flow all the way through the interior of car. This allowed first of all me to even be in the car investigating the problem, and of course it thinned the odor down enough that we could start to isolate it's source. Turns out the amplifier for the LR speaker was failing, and the potting material was "cooking" but had not yet as yet started to burn.

Which brings me to what kim needs to do. Get the car siting open, with fans blowing air through the car to cut the smell down, then stop the airflow and you should be able to narrow down where the odor is coming from.

help dead animal smell in car

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jemdandy

andyf

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