2002 Condensation + Smell

[dan~]

Hello all,

Condensation
I use to have a blocked plenum chamber when i bought the car, eventually got it recalled from VW, no idea if they cleared the water inside the car, but my usually all my windows inside the car are fogged up, i even had ice inside 2 days ago.

Smell
I usually get an odd smell (maybe exhaust smell, as its quite sweet) that comes in through the vents, when the car is at idle, so at traffic lights and when I drive on, the smell comes into the car.

I swear it's since I replaced the pollun filter with a non VW part (got it from GFS)

However, when I was looking at how easy it is to change the air filter, inside the air filter box, i noticed the smell in there too.

Any ideas?

[towcestervag]

have a look at the heater matrix
you will find some sort of staining down the side of the centre console in the bottom of the heater box but usually you will have coolant loss!

[dan~]

Hello, my coolant level hasnt ever changed :)

[martin1810]

Look for something dead in the air intake or air filter housing. You never know.

[Crasher]

Check that the pollen filter isn’t wet (the cover above can allow water to drip onto it) and the drains may be blocked again. The smell and condensation will be the sound deadening under the carpet being water logged. I lift the carpet and sound deadening up and use a wet vac to suck the water out but it takes time to do it.

[dan~]

Why would the smell, smell abit like emissions, if it was something dead, wouldnt it smell really bad?

I might replace the pollun filter with an official VW one this time and I'm replacing the air filter with a pipercross one soon.

but can't figure out what could be causing the emission smell, might be the person in front of me couldn't it?

Which carpet should I lift up, I've placed my hand on the floor and doesn't appear to be wet.

I know the carpet behind me (drivers rear passenger) feels hard, so maybe that was once wet and has expanded.

[Crasher]

The smell maybe that the drains tubes have been removed, I presumed the smell was a musty stale smell. If the drain tubes are removed, smells from the engine bay are drawn into the heating system when the blower motor is used. Putting your hand on the carpet won’t tell you anything, the insulation is solid and up to three inches thick in places and the only way to tell is to remove the kick panel and still trim so that the insulation can be lifted up.