HELP: Mold in Air conditioner

I have a 2002, Hyundai Elantra, less then two years old. I have a horrible, foul odor that has filled my car. So bad that the odor can be smelled outside of the car. I brought it to the dealer and they said that it is mold in my air conditioner. The remedy is $180 for a cabin filter. They claim although I am within my bumper to bumper warranty that this is not offered because it was an option I did not ask for in purchasing the car and in addition, it is a maintenance issue. I have never experienced anything like this before. The smell is so strong; I carry the smell on my clothes after a five-minute drive. The service manager told me that they have had many Elantra's come in with this issue. Please if anyone has ever experienced this, has a legitimate fix or can lead me in the right direction, please help.

You can buy the cabin filter and install yourself. I have seen several posts on the DIY install of this filter.

Jason

Welcome to the forum tunny19,

$180 dollar, WHAT,

First of all, the cabin air filter was never, and is not now, even offered as an option. It is listed as "fitting" the elantra in a TSB I'll post below, but it is not offered as an option, whether from the factory or as a dealer option, and there was no way you would have been asked if you
wanted it as an option. Second, the cabin air filter does not trap mold. It is a simple pleated paper filter designed to reduce dust coming through the ventilation system. The mold is caused by a water accumulating somewhere in the A/C system. The filter would neither stop the problem nor prevent it from occurring in the first place. Your dealer needs to take care of the problem, period. The only part of the A/C system NOT covered under the 5/60 back to back warranty is freon charging. Any other components are covered.

Now it seems to me that the dealership/service dept obviously doesn't want to help you out and are feeding you some bull excuse becasue they think you do not or won't know the difference. You can contact Hyundai Motor America and complain about the dealer, at the same time you should tell that service manager that you are going to do just that and expose his tactics to HMA. Any dealer in the country can back up the fact that the cabin filter is not an "official" option and is not required to prevent a mold problem. Most likely by you threatening to expose the svc mgr's bull excuse to HMA, the svc mgr will probably change his tune and do the right thing.

There is a law here in the states that is called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (http://www.granatellimotorsports.com/magnusonmoss.htm)which states you are not required to purchase any additional OEM parts on a car in order to keep the warranty valid, and if you are required to, the part(s) must be provided for free. This includes things like maintenance items (oil filters, e.g.). This is why you are allowed to by aftermarket filters and keep the warranty valid. if the dealer required to to use genuine hyundai filters, under the law they would have to provide them to you for free since that would be considered a variation of monopolization.

If you still want to get a Cabin Air Filter (not a bad idea, really), it does not cost 180 buck, but more like around 23-35 at the service department. The part number is 97133-2D000 (http://www.hmaservice.com/webtech/iindex.asp?id=394890134#_394890134)and the instruction to install it are at Hyundai Webtech TSB #04-97-001 (http://www.hmaservice.com/webtech/iindex.asp?id=394890168#_394890168).

Oh by the way, if you need to look over the warranty yourself you download the Official Hyundai Warranty Coverage Guide (http://www.santafemods.com/Downloads/WarrantyCoverageGuide.zip)off of my website in my profile.

Good luck and keep us posted on how it goes.

TS out.

Hey nippjas
I wanted to re-write the response and felt I should delete it and add this new one. Has the same info but much more.
TS out

Kewl, good post.

Thank you so much for your assistance. I also heard that there is a kit used to fix my problem. It is a long tube that goes into the air conditioner, it cleans it out and deodorizes it. Have you heard anything on it? Also, is this a common problem? How do I further prevent it? Can the smell be completely eliminated eventually? And can I expect for this to be a common issue with my car?

I can't thank you enough for your help. For a bit I was stuck with nowhere to go. I had contacted Hyundai Rep and they fed me the same info about it not being under warranty and that this is an external force causing this and that because it is not a defect in the design or a manufactures fault, they are not liable to fix it under warranty. It just seems weird.

Well thank you again.