What is that Smell?

[cetaft]

My turn for lunacy...

Every so often, when I start the car up after it's been in the (public) garage for a few days, I smell bleach or something similar. (It goes away in about 5 minutes.)

Does this "bleach" smell translate in to an odor from the cooling system? From something else? From something left over from the dealer's guy cleaning and prepping the car before I bought it in June?

Doesn't happen all the time... just enough to make me nuts.

Any ideas on what's causing the smell or what I can do about it?

[mikeklett]

if the smell is coming from the exhaust, i would suspect the cat converter.

[cetaft]

It seems to be coming from the air conditioning vents.

[xavier]

You're not talking about that sour smell that AC systems produce when they're shut off, are you? Our prior car, a Nissan Quest van, had this problem every time it was started in the summer. I haven't noticed it yet with our '01 XC, but we haven't had it long enough to tell yet. My Honda Accord does it but only if the AC compressor is shut off while the car is moving on a really humid day.

[cetaft]

No, this smell only occurs (sometimes) when we start the car after it's been parked for a few days.

[XC70Geo]

User's Manual tells, the ECC vent will run for some minutes cca an hour after turning off the ignition (preventing the ECC "wet" smell when starting again).
It can happen, that your car fills the ECC system with the garage's air, and you can feel this smell when starting.
On the other hand, someone wrote on this forum, that he had some strange smell, and the dealer replaced some parts under warranty and the smell was gone.

[birddog]

You could also see if the in cabin air filter needs replacement. We changed the one in my parent's car and couldn't beleive the difference. Cheap fix......

[littlewaywelt]

If changing the filters doesn't work get a set of crushed volcanic pummice rock that's sold in mesh bags and throw it under the driver seat or leave it on the dash when you park the car. They do wonders for absorbing odor. Brookstone probably sells it.

The other possibility which we only used on horrific smelling cars (and it's just a cover up, though a good one) was a can of folgers coffee with orange peels mixed in. It gives the car a semi-pleasant "what's that smell" from passengers. ...it's not quite coffee it's not quite orange. I only recommend that if the pummice won't work.