Let’s say I hypothetically had some mice pee in some plastic components that cannot be properly cleaned in any realistic way. Is it possible to heat it up to “cook off” the mouse pee nastiness without actually melting the plastic?

  • Septimaeus
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    8 months ago

    Most ducting in the dash of vehicles can be accessed with just a screwdriver, and there are usually only a handful of screws and plastic fasteners/snaps you have to remove. Downloading the diagram from a shop manual will show you where they are so you don’t have to find each of them, but it’s usually apparent in situ.

    If you don’t remove the ducts to clean them, while you may be able to lessen the smell by removing vent covers and snaking cleaning materials through the ductwork, your car will still always smell. The only way to get rid of the smell entirely is to remove the affected ducts and properly wash them.

    Before any if that, however: do you know which ducts are affected? It will reduce your workload considerably, especially if the affected duct is in fact your fresh air intake, as I would expect.

    The way I would determine that is to

    1. run the fan on high with recirculate ON and all windows open for several minutes, then
    2. sit inside and close the windows. Is the smell lessened from before?
    3. If so, confirm the diagnosis by turning recirculate off. If the smell suddenly gets stronger, it’s likely the rodent never made it past the blower manifold.

    In that case you’re in luck, as you may not need to disassemble the dash much at all. (You would be working mostly in the engine compartment and passenger footwell.)