My airconditioning smells like antifreeze? I have a 96 Mercedes C220. An antifreeze smell comes out of the vents when i run my air conditioning , its very intoxicating. what do you think is causing it and how much to fix? the smell goes away when i turn off the ac. thanks

Your heater core is leaking. Get it replaced.

Here is a cheap fix. My brother just bought a used 1 ton van for his plumbing company. It had an auxilliary heater in the back which he removed because it was in the way. Search wrecking yards and you can probably find such a heater at a very low cost. Mount it on the passenger side and run the …

can you explain to me what a heater core has to do with the air conditioning. I am not running the heater so why should i need a heater core?

Even when “air conditioning”, the air (at least some of it) passes through the heater core.

Your coolant is always circulation through the heater core, even when the heater is OFF, there is some leakage. This smelly stuff comes throught the defroster vents as well as the heater ducts, but with the A/C on, it is diluted! The heat and cold air come into the cabin through the same ducts. ALL…

Heater core is like a mini radiator that’s used to HEAT the cabin of your car during the winter. Yes you are NOT running the heater…however water/antifreeze is still circulating through it. When you turn the heat on a door opens up that diverts the air over the heater core that will heat the air and…

Yes, here in Mexico those old Beetles never have any sort of heater. I have gone on trips with someone and it rains, and they give me an old rag to reach across and keep the inside of the windshield scraped off so he can see to drive. By memory, the early Bugs had an engine heater, but they also do…

This is clearly a classic example of a leaking heater core. I experienced this on my '86 Taurus, and the cost to repair it (circa 1990) was over $600.00, with the vast majority of that cost being the labor necessary to access that relatively cheap part. In addition to the odor being “intoxicating”…

PS…Don’t do the $50 solution mentioned above. It’s NOT worth it. Actually, the $50 solution might work better on a Mercedes Benz than many other cars. Here is why: Back in the 1930’s, an engineer, Nils Eric Wahlberg at Nash motor company did extensive wind tunnel tests. He found that when a car…

Antifreeze smell coming out of vents when i run the AC

Maintenance/Repairs

Docnick August 11, 2008, 5:16pm 3

Agree! This is the classic leaking heater core problem. As suggested, get it replaced; these things are not worth fixing. Most of the repair cost will likley be labor. On a rear drive US car the cost is about $250; on a Mercedes I would guess $600+.

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Antifreeze smell coming out of vents when i run the AC

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