Team-BHP - Help! Something dead in air vent!!

- - Help! Something dead in air vent!! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/105735-help-something-dead-air-vent.html)

hi all

i have a 2009 swift. 2 days back a noise started coming from the air vents when switched on.

yesterday opened the car door and the insides are smelling of a dead rat or something!!

any idea how i can open the vent and get the thing out?

thanks bros

Places to check:
Fresh air inlet and diverter.
Blower unit under the passenger side dashboard.
The blower ducts inside the dash.

To get to all these places partial or complete removal of dashboard is required. The blower unit could be accessed after you remove the passenger side glove box but can you open it?

If you heard the noise of fan hitting something then it definitely might be in the blower unit.

Wise thing to do is to take it to the service centre and do a proper cleaning of the blower and ducts, you don't want any remnants of anything to be stuck in there and disinfect.

the noise is still there when i turn the unit on. so i guess something's managed to get into the blower, and died there.

i'll try to open the glove compartment.

Is the noise there ONLY when you turn the fan on? In that case, it must be on the cylindrical fan on the blower, else, it could be anywhere in the ac ducts.

Unless you have the required tooling and experience at home, I would suggest taking the car to an ASC or a FNG to get it cleared.

Take it to a service station or to a trusted local mechanic. It would be best to not attempt it yourself, considering that you may have a dead and mangled rat on your hands (literally ;))

You should take it to your nearest service station and ask them to open the dash and blower unit up. If you attempt to do it yourself, maruti might raise warranty issues if they find out that it was opened. Hope its sorted out soon!

DO NOT open the dashboard yourself. It's FAR more complicated than you think. There are LOTS of essential ECM wires running in the area.

DO NOT EAT OR DRINK in the car or allow anyone else also. These pests come looking for food & the smell coming from inside the vehicle (via the A/C vents) attracts them.

Keep some napthalene balls in the car at all times. These will mask the food smells & prevent further recurrence of such incidents.

Hope this helps.:)

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1self (Post 2459984)

Keep some napthalene balls in the car at all times. These will mask the food smells & prevent further recurrence of such incidents.

While this serves its purpose, remember that it will adversely affect your health.

I wouldn't suggest keeping naptha balls inside the car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sachinj12 (Post 2460061)

While this serves its purpose, remember that it will adversely affect your health.

I wouldn't suggest keeping naptha balls inside the car.

Well, a couple of these would not be bad. OR, one could put them in when the car is not occupied & remove them when it is.:)

If its making noise inside the fan, its an easy job. The fan unit is under the dash near to passenger foot well. Remove the 3 screws and unit comes out. Ensure that you keep paper underneath so that the falling debri does not mess up the mats.

If you are going to MSIL service center, after cleaning the blower and ducts, ask them to put rat mesh(wire mesh) in the ac duct openings to prevent further entry of rats.
I had similar bad experience on my old zen and after putting the mesh, rat entry stopped.