Smoke or steam came out of my air conditioning today...

[Hundred44Spokes]

I was on my way to the LA Auto Show and I turned on my heater and vapor or smoke or some :q:q:q:q came out of the left middle vent. What the hell was it?

 

[glanga]

your car was trying to hot box with you.

 

[macboy]

oooo... sounds like a cracked heater core that's leaking.

 

[NYC LS8]

If you start getting a film on the windows and it smells sweet like coolant, it's a bad heater core.

 

[lseguy]

Heater Core. Sort of like a smaller radiator inside of the dashboard. Usually involves a fair amount of labor to get to/replace.

 

[Jim Henderson]

If there is a lot of steam and that sweet smell, then it is probably a heater core. And it is expensive to fix in many cases. $1000+ on my Taurus years ago.

BUT, in humid climates if the air conditioner is on, you can get clouds due to condensation as the humid air passes thru the AC core. This happens a lot in places like Florida and sometimes in LA. I once thought my rental car was on fire when I visited Florida since clouds were blowing out of the AC vents. And I also saw clouds rolling across the ceiling of the convention center. So it does happen in humid weather.

LA has had a lot of fog lately so the air is humid, so if you are lucky, it was just the water in the air condensing out as it went thru the AC. If there is no smell, this is probably it.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

[Hundred44Spokes]

If there is a lot of steam and that sweet smell, then it is probably a heater core. And it is expensive to fix in many cases. $1000+ on my Taurus years ago.

BUT, in humid climates if the air conditioner is on, you can get clouds due to condensation as the humid air passes thru the AC core. This happens a lot in places like Florida and sometimes in LA. I once thought my rental car was on fire when I visited Florida since clouds were blowing out of the AC vents. And I also saw clouds rolling across the ceiling of the convention center. So it does happen in humid weather.

LA has had a lot of fog lately so the air is humid, so if you are lucky, it was just the water in the air condensing out as it went thru the AC. If there is no smell, this is probably it.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

I'm really hoping that's it. It was terribly foggy that day. I called my Mechanic and he said wait to see if it happens again and if so bring it in otherwise there's no risk.


Also, it wasn't constant steam. I had just kicked the heater on and it blew some smoke for like 3 seconds and stopped.