So, it worked. I plugged the left side drain with a rubber stopper. It rained all day several times since then and it's dry inside the car. Now I going with just one drain in the sunroof instead of two. It's kinda like living with one kidney. You'll probably be just fine. The right side drain works well and drains fast. Not much water gets in at any one time anyway.

 

I'm a real believer in reading the manual. .and was really surprised that there was nothing, nothing on cleaning or maintaining the sunroof. To me that means Honda is responsible if it leaks. I'm sitting in Ocala Florida just waiting to run or stay here from hurricane Irma 15 " of rain is expected or even more ! One day of super heavy rain will cause a LOT of water in the Fit if it is not working properly. I had a 2006 $57,000.00 Dodge SRT 10 Viper powered quad cab truck that I had to work frantically to dry out after the same problem. The dealership wanted over $100.00 to blow out the drains but when I told them I just did not have that much they did it for the 35.00 I had in my pocket. Honda should tell us how to service the sunroof or do it for free when your in for any reason.

 

Agreed. Honda should supply better information. If it weren't for the contributions by forum users I don't know how long it would have taken me to identify the cause of my problem. Honda should also bring a better product to market. A sunroof drain is a very simple component to build and quality test. Fortunately my car has been high and dry since I made the fix. I don't know how well my fix would have held up to Irma like rainfall though. I never bothered to go beyond plugging the drain hole. Maybe the drain tube could be fixed by blowing it out. But I don't feel like dealing with the Honda shop or spending a dime if I don't need to. I hate this crap, I buy a new car to avoid problems, not to find new problems to solve.

 

I have a 2015 Fit and am suspecting a water leak somewhere in my car, and just checked all four doors and noticed that that rubbery bit was only on the front driver and passenger doors (none on the back two doors)— is that correct? Do you guys also only have that rubbery part on your front doors as well?

 

Yeah, same on mine. The front doors have that rubbery bit, but not the rears. No problems with leaks yet...

 

I have a 2015 Honda Fit LX (bought new in May 2015) and I've recently noticed a moldy smell in the car every now and then, and I can't seem to figure out what's causing it.

Since July, I've noticed that sometimes when I turned on the fan, I'd get this wet sock smell coming out of the vents, specifically when I had airflow set to the Dashboard Vents (face), temperature set to cold, and air source set to Recirculation Mode. Some days the smell will be there, other days it won't.

After a few weeks of this smell, I finally went to my dealership and they recommended getting the air filters replaced (both the cabin filter and the one under the hood), and something they called the "air conditioning special", which consisted of the following steps: topping up R134A, installing leak detection, cleaning condenser, and deodorizing evaporator (these were their line items, I have no idea what they mean).

The first week after I got my car back, everything seemed to be fixed, as I didn't get the smell; now, though, the smell returns, sometimes for a couple minutes, sometimes for just a few seconds.

I tried some methods mentioned in different threads here, including running the regular fan on full blast for the last few minutes of every ride, and it helped, but the smell still comes back.


I started to suspect that maybe I had a water leak somewhere, and maybe that was causing the problem. Sometimes when I drive, I hear a swishing/sloshing sound, like water trapped in a bucket, so it wasn't impossible that there may be a leak.

I checked my driver and passenger side footwells, front and back, and everything was dry— no evidence of any water collecting anywhere. Then I checked the back, everything seemed good, except the spare tire well. It doesn't smell, but it looks like hell—





The underside of the spare tire itself looks like it has some rust:





I've had this car for over two years, and the spare tire well, to my recollection, has always looked like that. This 2015 Fit is my first car, so I never really questioned what the spare tire well was supposed to look like. Is this normal? Other Fit owners— is this what your well looks like? Or is this clear evidence that water has been seeping in? Could this (and/or other leaks) be the cause of the smell in the car? Should I head back to the dealership and get this looked at?

 

I have a 2017 Fit Now, but couple years a go i had a 2015. From brand new and mostly in the winter i smelled what i thought was anti freeze. Especially when i turned the heat and fan on to the floor. I checked and checked for water on the floor and fluid level disappearing. All for not. I finally believed it to be just whatever the carpet was made of. Its not winter here yet but i think i still smelled it faintly in my new 2017. Don't know if it helps you, but just throwing it out there. Now out the garage to check my trunk area......

 

There was definitely water in the spare wheel well at one point. Sediment in the well and rust on the steelie are dead giveaways. That looks to have been dirty water. Look like it either came in over a longish period and was parked outside or it was flooded.

The swishing is likely the gas tank right under your seat.

The wet sock smell is likely the AC. Mildew tends to grow on the condenser/evaporator or whatever it's called. There are methods to kill the mildew, but it will periodically come back. It's a maintenance thing. I've had a number of cars with the issue.

 

You know, I used to have the same intermittent mold smell, just a whiff for a few seconds here and there. I mentioned it to the service writer when I went for an oil change in early Aug and even pulled out the cabin filter but he was kind of meh and I didn't press it. But since then I haven't really noticed it. I had checked for leaks (none) and I never heard any sloshing like you describe.

So I just went out and pulled the spare real quick (I used it last year when I got a flat so it's not virgin territory down there) and I saw no rust at all. The wheel itself had no aberrations and the inside was completely dry and clean save for a handful of debris in one corner that almost resembled some kind of nest except that it was so small.

 

My trunk area clean as a pin. But only 4000 miles on the car.

 

I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that you should turn the a/c off and run just the fan for a minute before turning off the car or this problem can result.

 

While the spare tire well may or may not be the source of the smell, looking like that is absolutely NOT normal. Mine (2016 LX) is spotless. At some point there was definitely standing water back there. If it's always looked like that, it may have happened long ago, with no repetition. Or, it may be an ongoing problem. I'd clean the wheel and the well completely, then periodically check to see if water is making its way into the car during heavy rainstorms and such.

 

If you google the problem, or just search here, bad odors coming from a vehicles AC and air ducts is unfortunately a pretty common problem.
I don't know if it's just my sense of smell deteriorating or this ritual I routinely follow. But somewhere I read that occasionally you should run your entire system on recirculate, AC off, with the vents set to upper-to blow on you....with the heat turned up high. The idea is I suppose that the heat will help dry things out and kill any mildew or mold trying to form.
So about every 3 months or so, for about 5 minutes I do this. I've never noticed a really bad smell from my AC....but is it because of this ritual? Or is that just placebo and good luck? I don't know.

As far as your spare tire well. That is IMO NOT NORMAL. Water is getting into that space, or has been in that space, and it should always be dry. If you have no visible compromises or leaks? Then something happened at some point that you did not know about. Strange, since you say you bought the car brand new.

 

Thanks for all the tips guys! I'll try running the fan on high heat, recirculated, AC off, for a few minutes every couple of days and see if it gets rid of the smell.

As for the wheel well.. I'm taking it in to the dealership tomorrow to get things checked out in the back, and make sure there isn't a leak that's causing all that damage. I can't think of anything else that could have caused it, as I don't normally keep anything back there (except occasional grocery bags), and I've never spilled anything. I'm hoping Honda will cover the cost of cleaning the well and tire... it's only a 2-year old car, so I'm hoping this is covered by the warranty somehow.

 

If this is still under the bumper-to-bumper warranty I would HOPE that the leak would be fixed under that warranty as well as any ancillary damage caused by that fault. Meaning cleanup and possibly a new temp spare wheel since it's now rusty.

I hope so. I'd push the dealership to do exactly that.

 

I only do this for a few minutes every 3-4 months. And as a preventative measure more than anything else.
You should google the symptom, because there is a wealth of advice on the issue. You are not the only one with this issue.
I'm afraid my advice may not be very good. As I'm pretty sure A. My sense of smell is not good. And B. The results are probably placebo effect.

But good luck.

Just for kicks, I googled Automotive AC Odor youtube...and there are tons of videos with people demonstrating what they do/did to deal with the problem. There are products sold to actually deal with this problem.

 

I just got my new 2018 Fit home yesterday and today when I was checking it I found water in the spare tire well. If left there it would have caused rust on the wheel. It hadn't, so the water had entered very recently. It was nice clean water, like the kind I drink. My guess is that the water was from a pressure washer - the service guys were using their nice powerful pressure washer to hose off the car and in the process some water was forced in through an opening somewhere, past a rubber gasket or something and ended up settling on the spare tire floor. Sealed in down there evaporation would have been slow and by the time it was all gone it would have left rust damage. Chances are I would never see the problem again since regular car wash sprayers are probably not powerful enough for the problem to repeat.

 

I have a 2015 Fit EX since new and do have similar mildew/musky smell from AC vents and has been getting progressively worse. At a dealership I worked at, they would resolve the issue by spraying "fridgy fresh" into the system. I've never known where/what they sprayed so I did a YouTube search.
I just sprayed some Lemon scented Lysol in the intake that's around the wiper motor with the A/C on full blast in fresh mode and sprayed maybe 10 seconds. I then turned the knob to foot and sprayed another 10 seconds (Make sure you have the windows open so the Lysol doesn't dirty your windows). This definitely had an excellent initial positive effect as the air coming out is lemony fresh. It has been about a month since I've done this and the smell hasn't returned yet. I'm sure it's not a permanent fix but it's very easy to replicate should the smell come back. Since Lysol kills bacteria, I guess it's killing all the mold/mildew that is in the air vents???
I don't have the car with me so I can't check to see if my spare looks like yours. I wouldn't suspect it to be rusted since I know it was fresh off the truck (no flood car) and don't believe any water would have leaked into the trunk area.

 

This stuff:


... it's specifically for the moldy A/C problem. The instructions call for it to be injected into the system from the drain under the car, but I've had success by introducing it (carefully!) into the dash vents, but I had to be careful to open the right flappers to ensure that the foam actually reached the evaporator.

 

we also have an occasionla mouldyish smell, from the ac. I also had a swishy water sound from the dash. It was the condensate not draining from the ac system. There is a little black tube that goes from under passenger side dash through the floor/firewall and drains out at the back passenger side if the engine compartment. Our was blocked. I unplugged it by squeezing it, and a gallon of water drained out. You can see the end of the tube under the car. You can get at it from inside or gently slide a long screwdriver up the tube from underneath. Fit AC is weird and problematic, this is just one of the quirks I have never noticed in the many other cars I have owned