Is your car making you sick?

Everyone knows that a dirty home or workplace can lead to allergic reactions, asthma attacks and other respiratory conditions -- but what about your auto?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to Car Stuff. I'm Scott and I'm Ben. We
are joined as always with our super producer Alex Williams. Scott, Scott,
I gotta say before we go any further, I am

(00:24):
really digging your cap today. Oh yeah, that's right. I've
got my Rally North America cap on. Usually, you know,
I wear it around on the weekends, you know, kind
of casual thing, right, but I worked to work today
and that usually signifies it it's time for me to
get a haircut. Is that your secret? That is it?
It kind of is. I mean, I'll switch it up,
you know, now and then. But this is my Rally
North America cap I love this one and Glenn Beck

(00:46):
gave it to me and uh where occasionally on weekends
and um yeah, like I said, it is, if I
took this off, it would be horrifying. You know, when
I go into a restaurant now as a customer, they
expect me to wear a hairnet. That's what happened. Okay,
I thought you knew that. Guy. Know, it's just a
health issue. So speaking of health and speaking of fantastic segways.

(01:13):
And of course, speaking of cars, today's episode is something
that we hadn't really addressed before. Now. In the past,
we had looked at the more sinister side of new
car smell, right yeah, and that's gonna play into this
one too, And that's gonna play in as well. A
spoiler alert, please do check out our episode on new

(01:35):
car smell. But I will tell you what's happening. The
stuff you smell is a combination of what are called
v o c s volatile organic chemicals stuff bad bad stuff.
And the the problem here is that there's there's a
debate over whether some of these v o c s

(01:57):
can cause health issues, right, especially in some older cars
using older material long term effects. But as it turns out,
you you may not have to worry about new car
smell in a lot of newer vehicles. What you may
have to worry about instead are allergies. Scott, you're not
a hypochondriac, are you? No? Not by any means? No, No,

(02:19):
I'm not either. But I love hanging out with my
hypochondriac friends, especially if they know they're hypochondriacs, because, like
you always feel like you're here healthy you're full, like
you're you know, there's there's nothing wrong with you at all.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm on my second chili dog
of the morning. And then somebody comes by and telling

(02:40):
me about coconut water or whatever. Go, I'll just have
another soda. But but it's it's um. It's something that
might sound like the rant of a hypochondriac when you
hear somebody say it. When your friends comes up to
you and says, hey, I think I'm allergic to my car.
Are I think my car is making me sick? Normally

(03:04):
you would be like, uh, get out of here. It's
probably ragweed season or something. Yeah. Yeah, they've got seasonal
allergies or maybe even a little touch of asthma or something.
You know, it's affecting them when they're outside. Because when
you're in your car, you're out in the open. You're
out in you know, out in nature right right typically,
I mean you're in downtown or whatever. I understand, but
you're out and and doing things you're not. It can

(03:24):
find your house. You're not in an area that you
normally clean. You normally keep uh, you know, vacuumed all
the time. You normally keep uh, you know, dust and
allergens and pollens and everything at a minimum with things
like you know, filtration in your furnace, um, your air conditioner,
all that has you know, filters that take all that
stuff out of the air for you in your house.
Plus you're vacuum plus you're cleaning, you're dusting, you're doing

(03:45):
all that. A lot of people neglect their cars and
that's a problem. Um So, so it could be the
case that you're hyperchondriac. Friend isn't a hyperchondriac. And when saying,
you know, my car is making me sick, it's it's
a real possibility, and it's something it's an angle that
I hadn't really thought about until you sent me this
article and I found I started digging around. I found
a couple. There's one on our website on how stuff

(04:06):
Works dot com called how to allergy proof your car
and garudge. And then there was this other one that
you sent me your car maybe making you sick, which
sounds a little alarmist to be honest, but but there's
some interesting statistics here, So let's start with those. According
to Aller Days UH a L L E R Days

(04:27):
and information service that provides info on allergies and their causes.
Americans spend every year an estimated half billion dollars just
on allergy treatments. That's a lot. That's that's a whole
heck of a lot. And in addition, people who suffer
from allergies lose three million days of work and two

(04:48):
million days of school every single year. Wait, okay, so
years three and sixty five days. Yeah, we're talking about
a lot of people here in in other way. Okay,
so three million days of work and two million days
of school are lost because of just allergies every single year.
All right. I wonder how much of that is due to,
you know, being sick because of being in the car,
but commuting. It has to happen, yeah, because, like you said, Scott, oftentimes,

(05:14):
if somebody has a really big allergy or something, you know,
like they can't get by pollen season. Yea, oftentimes these
folks will take extreme steps to clean their home. You know,
I had never had a problem with allergies until I
moved down here, down to Atlanta, and then, um, of
course I think everybody in this area and probably even

(05:36):
other areas of the world know that. Um, you know,
there's a certain season where the pine pine trees lose
their pod like they I guess they're pollinating there. What
are they doing, They're they're shedding their pollen or whatever.
And and there are clouds of yellow pollen in the air.
So like a gust blows across some pine trees, you'll
see a cloud of yellow pollen blow across the road,

(05:57):
and it ends up on everything, and it ends up,
you know, on your skin, on your in your clothes,
in your car, of course, in your garage, and it
ends up everywhere. And and that's what started to bother
me when I came down here, and a lot of
different seasons, I guess, you know where you're not accustomed
to things blooming all year long. Now they bloom all
year long for me here and of course for everybody

(06:18):
down here. But but you know, there's a lot of
different concerns and humidity, So there's mold spores that you know,
are something new that, uh, there's less humidity up where
I'm from. And uh, it's just it seems like, you know,
moving locations can also um alert you to sensitivities that
you didn't know you had. That's a really good point.
So this means that it might not. You might not

(06:38):
find yourself suffering from something in your car just because
you moved to a new location. It might be the
road trip at the wrong time of year, could be
and all that stuff again. I mean, if your cabin
air filter isn't great, we'll talk about how ways to
filter it out of your car. But but if your
cabin air filter isn't great, the seals in your car
are great. You know, you get your windows down as
you travel through some of these areas, your car picks

(06:59):
up that stuff and then you take it with you
wherever you're going and and it becomes an irritant. Yeah.
So one thing that you will hear a lot of
auto manufacturers talking about nowadays is the idea of the
car as the quote unquote third space. So there's the
idea that you know, your first space is your home, right,

(07:21):
and then your second space is your work or your school,
whatever that other environment is. And then the third space,
where you would spend at least uh, the third most
amount of time, uh may well be your car. But
we don't have It's not like your job. There's not
a staff of people cleaning up. It's not like your home.

(07:41):
You know, there's a Unfortunately, it's not like the your home.
A lot of drivers don't have an established, uh an
established cleaning routine the way that you would in a
house or a workplace. I mean a lot of people
like to keep your car clean. But sure, but maybe
you're not going to the extremes that you would for
your house. You're not using the same type products h
that UM alleviate some of these issues. Like we're talking

(08:04):
about things like you know, dust mites and and spoiled food.
There's also mold spores that are floating around. Um, there's
there's human and animal dander. Of course we're talking about
like you know, dead flakes of skin, which is gross
to think about, but a lot of dust and dirt
is just human skin cells. It's gross. Um, there's chemicals
and that are released from you know, the fabrics and

(08:24):
the and the plastics and everything inside that we talked about.
It's just it's it's a place that needs a regular cleaning,
just like your home does. But people often neglect that.
And I know that some people like to say they
keep a clean car, they keep it spotless all the time.
But um, you know, maybe maybe you know you got
in with wet boots one day and h you know,
it soaked the carpet and the padding beneath and uh

(08:46):
and allowed mold to grow. Or if there's that mildewy
smell that you just you know, can't quite get rid of,
you know, it lasts like a month or something, or
you know, the kids spells milk in the back seat
or something gross like that, and you know that smell
never comes out. But there's there's something behind that. There's
there's bacteria, there's there's germs. It's it's it's a bad
situation and it attracts more back to attracts more mold

(09:08):
spores and more collen and it just it's spirals out
of control. It's like a snowball. Yeah, snowball effactory. Yeah,
it's that's exactly right. And uh, you know we're not
calling everybody dirty. So unless before we get to Howard
Hughes sounding, I do want to establish that in extensive

(09:28):
off air conversations, it's become abundantly clear to both Scott
and I that he is the he is the clean
cleaner car keeper. You know what I mean? Well, you know,
and here's the thing. It slips, it slips back and
forth a little bit, because there are times I go
through where you know, I have to eat my car sometimes,
and I know that's a cardinal sin to a lot
of people. Man, it's it's bad for your car to eat,

(09:51):
and it really is. It's terrible. I mean, for one,
you know, I never even noticed this before, but I
don't know why I was. I was eating something in
the car, fast food to some kind, and I'm pull
out the napkins, right, just simple as simple as this, right.
So what those paper napkins, you know, brown paper or whatever.
As I pull them out of the fast food bag,
that's you know, soaked with grease and everything that it
shouldn't you know, stuff I shouldn't eat. I pull it

(10:11):
out and I don't know if it was the way
the sunlight was coming through the window or what, but
but there was like this just flourish of dust that appears, right,
and it was those napkins there. It's like they're disintegrated.
If you papers, paper fires, if you shake it in
the air. It's like, well, no, wonder your car always
looks dusty is because you know, I've got these napkins
that I pull out all the time and and try
to eat something. And so it's not just you know,

(10:32):
staying on top of like making sure there's not a
French fry you know, loose underneath the underneath the seat
or something. It's like, it's never going to get rid
of that. You're never gonna get rid of that dust
if you don't keep hauling these stupid napkins out all
the time. And it's it's a simple thing, but it's
just one thing. That's like one place where some kind
of irritant will come from. And then there's all kinds
of other things too. I mean, you drop a little

(10:53):
piece of I don't know, bacon or or a little
bit of hamburger or whatever it is, or a piece
of cheese from that talc with you're eating, that stuff
grows mold and it and it it's bad for you.
You shouldn't have that in the environment that you're in.
But you know that it will end up fossilized underneath
the seat at some point. Right, it's gonna stay there
for a while because you're not going to track it
down if if you can't see it, how are you
going to see it to vacuum it up later? Right,

(11:14):
there's boy, I feel like I'm gonna I'm on the
edge of a rant here fan, so I'm not. I'm
not I'm gonna back it down, it back, and I
am I'm going to it. I do know that you're
not supposed to be in your car, but sometimes it's unavoidable.
We'll get to that in this in this episode. Because
there's some things that you should avoid avoid doing. Eating
as one of them. Yeah. Yeah, I personally, I I've

(11:35):
eaten before when I'm on a road trip, and my
policy with that is pretty much that if if I'm
under road trip before in the car for more than
three or four hours solid, and people riding with me
want to eat, they say, I'm a little bit of

(11:56):
a well the phrase they use is Nazi about it.
Say I'm a little bit of a Nazi about it.
But you need to you need to be strong about this. Well,
I have certain foods banned. Yea, you know what I meant,
coming in my car with pulled pork, you know, so
when one try to eat pulled pork in your car. Yeah.
We stopped at this barbecue place and I said, I

(12:18):
was being cool man. I was like, look, they've got
this picnic bench the barbecue looks good, it looks great. Well,
we can just eat out here, it's a nice day.
And we're like, no, we do have a schedule to keep,
which was true, and I said, okay, So I wolfed
down my sandwich and then I'm going back to the car.
And then this this joker walking in with like half
the sandwich the sauce on their fingers, and I stopped them.

(12:40):
I pulled one of those uh what's what's that movie
Lord of the Rings where the wizard Gandalf is like,
you shall not pass anyway. It's cool, we're still friends,
but that would be on my no lists. Yeah, and
I don't think anything. You know, if it's your car,
it's your kingdom. That's the that's the tack I take.
But we're not We're not just here to to warn

(13:03):
you about those statistics and and the kinds of stuff
you can find. We're here to provide solutions. So the
first question is, going back to Scott's earlier example about
hamburger a little piece of bacon, is where do you
find these culprits? You know, because they're there, there are
certain trouble spots in every vehicle. Well, the first place
you should look is under the hood, believe it or not.

(13:24):
So not even in the cabin itself. I mean it's
gonna be dirt and dust and grime that then it
gets on top of the engine. Uh, there's gonna be
leaking oil and moisture. You know that that's collected underneath there,
you know for like the uh, the the the air
conditioning system. I guess the cooling system, um, you know
needs to actually all of it. You know, you're getting
your fresh air through there, really, um sort of, I

(13:44):
mean in a way. I mean, let's not it would
be pointless. You draw a diagram right now. But the
way they're there comes into different vehicles. But you know
that cowl area that's right in front of the the
winshield wipers. Yeah, the intake, Yeah, that becomes ACU like
it just there's an accumulation of of leaves and debris
and stuff that gets in there. And sometimes that stuff
can you know hold mold spores of course, and and
pollen and all that eventually goes into the air cleaning system.

(14:09):
I know, they're supposed to be a cabin air filter
in there somewhere. Some people might not have that, which
is a bad scenario. To be up, you know, to
begin with. But um, even if you have one and
it's it's clogged or it's dirty, allowing some of that
you know, garbage to filter through there, you know, to
keep coming through it's all dirty and gross. Um, that's
that's bad news too. I mean it could be bad
for it. You can be unhealthy. Yeah, here's the analogy

(14:31):
I like to think of when I'm trying to explain
this to people who are not, you know, always on
top of their car maintenance. Imagine the air going from
outside into your car like a river, and where the
air intake is when leaves and little sticks and pine

(14:52):
kneels and and road dirt and stuff like that. When
that kind of gunks up, it's like there's a dam
in the river. And not only is it um, if
you've ever seen a beaver build a dam, you know
that it's not clear water. On the other side. There
are a bunch of other things from that agglomeration of
well i'll say a crap that are that are filtering

(15:14):
in there. And what makes it worse is that in
the difference between actual dam and what's happening in your
air intake is that, as you said, the mold isn't
just flowing through their little bits of dead leaves aren't
just flowing through there. Stuff is breeding in there. It

(15:37):
becomes a little city for bacteria and for all, for
all those things that play the otherwise valuable ecological role
of breaking down and digesting dead leaves and plants. Now
they're right by your wipers and they are coming for you. Yeah. Now,
to be clear, we're not talking about you know, the
air that's going into your engine. That's a different that's

(15:59):
all different system. It's different. We have we talked about that,
this is this is you know that again that area
right near the wipers, you know, kind of down blow
at the at the bottom end of the windshield. So
if you can clean that area off as as often
as possible, get rid of all the garbage is there,
has Ben said, it's it's just like a damn that
builds up and breeds grossness. Make it, you know, make it.
One thing I always encourage people to do, I say always.

(16:23):
Maybe this is just me ranting and my friends, but
one thing I encourage people to do is to have
a gas station routine. So when you're filling up your tank,
you have a couple of minutes, right, and you can
sit there on your phone or checking out the hottie
the next bump over, which I've guilty of often, but

(16:44):
you can also take the time just to like get
that get that crap off your off of your intake,
and then you know, it takes you thirty seconds. I
don't want to sound the holier than now man, but
if you've got bird crap on your car, this is
the time when you should get it off Toronto. Right. Yeah,
we already mentioned the passenger compartments. So you got like,

(17:05):
if you ever haul your pets, that's gonna vacuum after
that hair and dander and all that stuff. I mean
that pet dander can be bad news for some people.
You know, even if it doesn't make you sick, it
can make the next person that is your passenger sick too,
So there's that to consider as well. We talked about
you know, spoiled food particles and fumes and things like

(17:25):
that from foam padding and vinyl and the carpeting and plastics,
and you know there's lots of that in every single vehicle,
I mean, new and old, So no one's exempt from this.
This type of thing, the offcassing, I guess that happens
from some of those materials. And then of course moisture, moisture. Yeah,
I don't know why I'm doing that exit, but moisture will.

(17:47):
Of course, moisture can often be the great destroyer of
all things technological. So it can make its way past
busted weather stripping, rusted body panels, leaky when she old,
and it will find its way under the carpet and
it will thrive in foam rubber on carpet padding or

(18:08):
the wet cloth itself, and it can be a real
pain to get that out, definitely, if you have seats
that have ever been wet, if you left the window down,
or if you know you had a bad seal, did
you ever do that? Did you ever leave the window
down in the on a rainy night? I have? Yeah, Yeah,
that's a horrible mistake to wake up two in the
way I did it, And I felt like a real
I felt like a real rube driving around with the

(18:29):
beach towel. Well, how long did it take for that
mold and mildew smell to come out of the car?
Or did it? Ever? Man? I took that. I took
a shop back first in a garage went over and
over and couldn't quite get all out. And then I because,
as you said, it's really humid here in Atlanta, and
this is this happened in the south, and I was like, man,

(18:49):
if I leave this thing other than bone dry, it's
gonna be a terrible smell the rest of the rest
of its days. Well, like every rental car in Florida.
I say this. I say this every time. Every rental
car and Florida smells moldy and mildew when you first
get into it. And I don't know if it's in
the heating and cooling system. I don't know if it's
in the seats or in the carpets. Probably in everything.
I mean, I think everybody. Of course, it's very, very

(19:12):
very humid in the northern part, at least to Florida.
I think all Florida really. But if you go to
you know, Disney World or something, you run a minivan
and you you know, you you're excited about it, but
you throw the luggage in and everybody hops in the car,
and then there's that that really like it makes your
your nose crinkle up a bit, you know, like you
you kind of like look at each other like, what
is that smell? And then after a few minutes, either
either it dissipates or maybe you get accustomed to it.

(19:35):
I think you probably get accustomed to it, that's it.
But then, you know what I mean, you're sitting on
moldy seats. I don't know. Maybe it's in the carpets,
who knows. But I have this problem every single time
I go to Florida. I've mentioned it probably thirty times
on this podcast over the last nine years. It's it's
really a problem down there. So I'm also really glad
that you mentioned mildew or mold that might be in

(19:56):
the a C. Because this happens all the time in
human environments. Has happened to me before too. And I
wasn't you know, I wasn't filthy. I'm not like Scott
Benjamin clean in my car, but like I vacuum and stuff.
I didn't know which direction you were gonna go. No, no, no,
Scott's cars are always super clean. I try to keep

(20:19):
up with it. And uh, this is something that a
lot of us will probably experienced when you have a
clogged a C evaporator drain hole. Oh yeah, absolutely, I
mean I think everybody can can understand this one too.
I mean you get in a car and you turn
on you know, the the A C. System, whether it's
heating or cooling, and just an awful smell comes through
the vents. And again it's not from anywhere else in

(20:40):
the car, it's just through the vents. It's coming right
from there, so you know it's part of that system.
How do you dig in there to clean that out?
I mean they're they're you know online tips and tricks
I can do. And there was even some spray I
don't remember a long time ago. Uh, this is a
problem in a certain type of I think it was
a cryso product, probably a lot of products, but um,
there was a way that you could drill a hole

(21:01):
through one of these cases, because you know it's a
sealed system, really pretty much sealed, not entirely sealed, but
um there's a flat panel that you could drill a
hole through an access hole and then use this can
of spray that they would give you. It's like I
think clean the coil, the evaporator coil or something like that. Um,
but anyways, it removed all that that mold and milde
smell almost instantaneously. It was pretty nice really, But I

(21:23):
don't know how long that lasted. I don't remember how
long the fix was good for. Did it really remove
it or did it just masks? No, No, it removed it.
It was it was a way that um, it was
something that broke down the actual mold. You know that
it was a way of chemically cleaning the system. So
and there was a procedure that went along with it,
you know, running at full full speed hot or whatever
it was, and you know, etcetera. But um, but it

(21:44):
was it was effective. And uh, I think if you know,
you search online for how to get rid of that smell,
a lot of cars will have access to the areas
that you know have that mold and mill. Do I
allow you to clean out that drain hole? Um or
you know something like what I just mentioned where you
know they're there workarounds, I guess, and manufacturers know how
to work around this because you're not the first person
to complain about that smell, right, and you we promise

(22:06):
you you can do better than buying uh, hanging air
fresheners for your windshield, yeah, for your rear view mirror. Well, yeah,
are the ones that you put on the on the
vents themselves. That's a that's good for a temporary fix,
but it's not it's not the not the real solution. No,
it's not ideal. The last problem point that you would

(22:28):
probably find in a car that's not a little dr
susy and the last problem point you will probably find. Okay, Uh,
the point is your trunk. Uh. And and I know
what I was saying, Like I checked my trunk. We
all hopefully pride ourselves on having our roadside assistance kits

(22:48):
or even maybe our bug out bags. I recommend both.
You can check that out on our earlier podcast. Well,
probably I'll pride ourselves on having this stuff in there.
But the thing is, of course, with the poor ceiling
on a on on the trunk itself, for on a
tail lamp or rusted panel, the moisture will build and
the trunk is the perfect place for this kind of

(23:11):
stuff to breathe. Well, it's carpeted for one, right, there's
padding underneath there sometimes not always. Uh, there's that particle
board sometimes that they used to separate you know, where
the spare tire is below the floor. The floor there.
Sometimes that's use. Sometimes it's plastic. Sometimes it's a it's
a different type of material. But but again, you're right,
this is a huge panel that has a giant seal
all the way around it. And if if that seal

(23:33):
is compromised in any way, uh, there's there's gonna be
water coming in. There's going to be inlet or intake
of water in that area. And here's another problem that
a lot of people don't think about, and this is
this is one that I've come run across looking for
a used vehicle. Look at the spare tire. You're gonna saying, yeah,
if you if you do that and take a look
at the spare tire, lift up to your trunk, uh

(23:55):
carpeting or whatever you have to do to get to
the spare tire, occasionally you'll find that that area is
full of water. And because that's the low point, right,
I mean, that's the that's the bottom point of the
trunk really, I mean where it all ends up. Really,
And I've I've searched for this in uh in used
cars before UM had there was a jeep that we

(24:15):
were looking at, a wrangler and the back area, you know,
like there's the it was a soft top, so you know,
I had the plastic windows, and it wasn't latched properly.
You know there there's like two clips or something that
had to come together back there. Um. So I noticed
that the back area was all wet, you know, the
material back there with wet. And I lifted it up,
you know, the back area, and I know that. I
think the spirit tires outside on a on a wrangler
if I remember right. And then in the floor there's

(24:37):
either a storage compartment or something like that, and I
think they had like their their tools in there, like
a jack and you know things like that totally full
of water. It's just loaded with the water. So you
know that, you know, it wasn't I'll tell you what
it wasn't. It wasn't um fresh by any means that
they were like little like um, you know when you're
looking like a pond and you see those little bugs
that kind of like wiggle. Yeah, it was like that.

(24:59):
It was just really gross there for a while. Yeah, exactly,
things had started to grow in the water. And uh
so you know that the rest of the car is
probably not in great shape anyways, but um yeah, watch
for stuff like that. I mean, the moisture seals around
a trunk or a soft top or whatever. All that
stuff is really really important. So your seals are are
you know, if you're loading and unloading things out of

(25:20):
your trunk, like like you know something home deepot or
you know, some lumber or whatever, make sure you don't
damage those seals because the next time it rains really hard,
you're gonna You're gonna know it. So we've walked through
some of the huge problem areas and now you're probably wondering, Scott,
Ben I'm looking around. Some people are listening to this
while they're driving, Scott. You know that they're looking around

(25:42):
there thinking, oh what am I breathing in? When's the
last time I looked at my spare tire. Have no
fear of friends and neighbors. We will tell you how
to fix this. We will provide solutions after a word
from our sponsor, and we're back, Scott. While we were

(26:02):
on the break, Oh did you have a good break?
I did have a good break. Yeah I didn't. I
get a lot accomplished to believe as we were as
we were sitting here for sixty seconds, no, no, um, Well,
as we were on break, I it just occurred to
me there was something I wanted to ask you earlier.
What is the dirtiest car you've seen? Not that okay, okay, caveats, Uh,

(26:25):
not the dirtiest car you owned, just seen in general,
but not on the internet or you know, like a
forwarded email or something or in a photo. In real life,
it's the dirtiest in real life. Okay, I'm gonna ask
you the same thing. But but in real life. I
came across a vehicle in a parking lot. I think
I believe it was a Walmart parking lot. So um,

(26:45):
you know how they have that kind of loose policy
of people can sleep in the parking lot in vehicles. Uh,
there was a I don't know if it's a whole family.
It was at least two people sleeping in a car.
They had cats in the car, and it was piled
with just garbage, you know, I mean like the back
seat you can't even get into the back. But it
wasn't just like, it wasn't clothes and stuff like that.
I mean, these people are having a hard time a parent.

(27:07):
They were living out of the car. I think, um
piled to the top. It looked like old newspapers and
fast food bags. And again there were at least two
cats in there. Um, two people sleep and I just
walked pat you know, of course you're not gonna disturb anybody.
I just walked past. Um at least two cats. I
don't know if there were more in the rest of
the garbage or whatever. But looked filthy, you know, I
had like that. Um, you know when someone smokes inside

(27:30):
a car and they don't open the windows or whatever.
I mean, even if they do open the windows, I
guess it gets that film on the inside on the yeah,
and the glass and and the the upholstree like on
the yeah, on the ceiling kind of drops down. Yeah,
I guess so. I mean, this one is so full
that I couldn't even see if it was dropping down
like that there, you know, two people in the front
or whatever. But um, it was a big old car too.

(27:50):
I mean, I'm gonna guess like a Bonneville or something
like that, but an old old one, uh, you know,
really long vehicle. Um, just filthy car. I mean they're
uinding me like an Uncle Uncle Buck tar car or
something like the car with Uncle Buck droving movies. Um,
what about you, what's the you know, what's the dirtiest
car you've ever seen? Or had to write in Okay,
I had to separates the dirtiest car I've ever seen. Um.

(28:16):
The only way I could have ridden in it as
if I was driving, because there was literally no no
more room. I remember it like it was yesterday. I'm
waving my hands. We could do a sound effect on
I thinks our producer Alex is nodding yes, or I
don't know if he's just waving at me, but either way,
we'll keep going with the story. Yeah, seriously, it was

(28:38):
a Volvo station wagon to forty I believe, and it
was filled to the brim with fast food garbage to
the brim Scott and the passenger seat was filled as well.
It was leaking oil clear lead like the puddle was running.

(29:03):
Um it was. The transmission was or excuse me, the
muffler had the like wires tied to the back to
the undercarriage to keep it hanging on. Yeah, there were
cigarette butts and ashes all along the dashboard. There was
a soda that had spilled a while ago. I know

(29:26):
because the cup from Checkers was still there. And I
hate to say it, man, it was in a Walmart
parking lot. I'm not knocking Walmart. So the same place. Yeah,
and it was and they were parked, Um, they were
parked in the handicapped spot, did not have a sticker,
and you know how I am about that, you know,
but I figured they had enough problems. Well, yeah, you

(29:48):
don't want to stir up any more trouble with that
in that situation. Yeah, boy, that's that's what a coincidence.
So huh parking Walmart parking lot. Yeah, I'm interesting. Maybe
it was just at the same Walmart, don't think so.
I think I think that type of character might roll
through there occasionally, you know, like more more often than not,
I guess. Um in the parking for a night's stay.
They did have out a state place, Okay, see, and

(30:11):
that's one of those things that's like one of those
uh you know, we're not we're gonna just look the
other way, right, We're gonna we're gonna not notice that
you're sleeping here in our parking lot, right, and that
they look let our vs stay there and trucks and stuff.
I'm not knocking anybody for the kind of car they own.
And I know sometimes there are repairs that are you know,

(30:34):
the kind of stuff that makes your car function better.
But it's not critical to its operation, like a largely
cosmetic repairs something. I get that that sometimes we're not
in the place in our lives where we are capable
of paying for that sort of stuff. But there are
free trash cans around the country. Yeah, that was just

(30:54):
being lazy. There are billions all this fast food. I'm
telling you to the seal lanehi Vovo station wagon too.
That's pretty big, right, because it's not just the sedan
that's the thing. It's maybe there was stuff under the garbage.
But I'm telling you, man, I I'm probably pretty lucky
that the person didn't walk out, whomever owned it or

(31:18):
whomever was driving it, because I walked around the vehicle,
and you know, if you like cars, there's something almost
like sacrilegious about seeing a real pos and uh, I
think if they cleaned it up, it would have been
in bettery condition. But that that is, that is full stop,
the grossest I've seen, and let us know, the grossest

(31:40):
you've seen, Oh yeah, definitely, And I think the Bonneville
that I came upon that was probably the dirtiest. I mean,
there might be examples of worse off than that, but
I think it was too far gone. If you've got
cats living in the car with you, and you've got
you know that that that greasy film on the windows,
and you know that it's been smoked in heavily. The
seats are gonna be saturated with that at the carpet.
You know, it's just I think it was on it's

(32:01):
used well, I guess beyond its u um use car,
use car lot. This is a real peach days. You know.
I don't know how better to say that. You know,
I'm um, you know, it's probably not gonna be sold
to anybody for any kind of substantial sum of money.
They couldn't say this has a lot of personnelity, No, no, no,
I don't. Well, yeah, I had a lot of personality.
Ere's right, but uh um, Now I think it's more

(32:22):
of just scrap metal at this point, you know, hopefully, Yeah,
but yeah, I mean that's the extremes, right, that's the
that's the extreme. And I love that you mentioned smoking,
because that's one of our top tips, one of the
one of the first and most important things that you
can do to prevent this kind of aggregation of contaminants

(32:44):
and collutants and stuff in your car is of course
to not let people smoke inside of it. Now, for
some of us that might sound a little bit, uh,
a little bit kid glovy. You know the idea of
being like, well, if I've got if I've got a car,
and my my car emitst gas. You know, my my

(33:07):
car run exceeding my car runs on gas. My car
is emitting stuff in the atmosphere. Why would I let
somebody smoke inside of it? Uh? The problem is that
if someone is smoking inside the passenger compartment, as Scott said,
that stuff gets in the seats, and it gets in
the trim, and it gets in the carpet, and then

(33:29):
it slowly comes out over time like another v oc
creating a new car smell. So somebody who has an
allergy to smoke, or you know, the pollutants that are
given off by second answer, Um, we'll find that, you know,
they're gonna be susceptible to that in your vehicle, even
if even if you haven't smoked in that car for
a year. It's slowly, slowly comes out of all those

(33:51):
fabrics and materials, so it stays there. It's it accumulates
and maybe maybe you know, if you're on the road, uh,
and your smoke came with your windows down, that'll mitigate
the effect probably to a good degree, but it's not
gonna prevent it, especially for using the ashtray in your car.
And if it's not a health issue to you, if

(34:15):
if that's not your main concern, then your other concern
should be resell value, because it's very difficult to get
that smell out, very very difficulent. A lot of times
you'll see smokers that hold the cigarette out the out
the car window. And I was wonder if that's like
a kid trying to smoke without their parents knowing, or
of course they're gonna know, but I was wondering if
that's the case, or if they're trying to you know,
keep the car, you know, the new car smell, but

(34:36):
still smoke in the car on the way to work
or school or wherever they're going. Um, next one is
is pretty obvious, right, I mean, don't eat in the car.
We told you that already. That's probably. Um, it's easier
said than done, really, and a lot of cases, I
mean it really is. I mean it's it's tough not
to sometimes it's just unavoidable. But even the tiniest crumbs,
the tiniest you know, drops of soda or whatever you're

(34:57):
you're drinking. Um. You know, if they get into the
fabric are on the carpet, that stuff just attracts, uh,
you know, mold, spores, pollen and all that stuff. It
it attracts other things. It's not just the material itself, um,
you know. And of course you know those a little
pieces of food start to decay, they might even attract insects.
It might attract um, mice, rats like rats and a prius.

(35:18):
Remember that we have a coworker that had rats and
aprius here and uh. And that was because the rats
were attracted to the food that the kids were dropping
in the back seat. And then once they clean up
all the food, you know, the cheerios or whatever the
you know, the kids had juice boxes left over or whatever. Um,
the rats started to go for the padding in the

(35:39):
car seats, the kids car seats. And I know that
this is all sounds really gross, but but they trapped
the rats and got rid of the problem. But I
think there was a second instance of it, uh briefly,
and then it went away again because you know, they
knew what to look for rats and oprius. Rats also
if you have somebody who is a specially allergen sensitive, right,

(36:03):
is that the correct term, Scott? I think, so, okay,
why not if you have somebody about asthmatic? Asthmatic? Okay,
there we go asthmatic. There are a lot of manufacturers
and a lot of aftermarket folks who make specialized duct
and a C duct and passenger compartment filters all right.
I find this interesting because you know, when you go

(36:23):
to the home store, you know, like you know, whether
it's a big box store, home home depot, lows, whatever,
and you looking at the filters for your furnace or
your A C unit or where you have. Right, Um,
you know, there's the ones that are two or three dollars,
right that the paper ones are real cheap, you know,
they're very very simple, And then they go all the
way up to the ones that are thirty plus dollars each, right,

(36:44):
And they're the ones that claim to filter out all
the pollen, all the dust, all the all the particular
matter that's floating around inside your system. Um. I don't
know you know the validity of any of those those claims,
but it's interesting to know that there's a similar situation
for your car I mean, you're you're able to choose
car filters that have higher I don't know, I guess

(37:05):
it would be like it filter out X number of
microns of of material you know, are down to a
certain point, you know, like a smaller a smaller filteration.
It seems to me though, like you'd want maximum flow
to to um prevent the system from burning itself out,
from working harder. But you know, I guess a stronger
filter would mean that it would catch more stuff. So

(37:25):
I don't know, you're kind of in a buying there, right, Yeah,
And you have to you have to be careful with
some of that stuff too, because unfortunately, even in seventeen
is we record this, there's still some snake oil salesman
out there. Oh yeah, I feel the way the same way. Um,
you know. And that uh, that that filter advice, I
guess was something that I just heard from my brother. Uh.

(37:46):
They had somebody come over in the service their their
furnace at their house and and the guy said, just
stick with a three or four dollar filters in your furnace.
They're they're fine, and it makes your furnace work a
lot less hard to to push to push the air
through and I'm sure you're gonna get a little bit
of dust or whatever. But unless you're hyper sensitive to
something like that, you really don't need that that that
extra level of filteration. Now, of course, I can't give

(38:09):
advice to everybody, so investigate that for yourself. But um,
I do find it interesting that you know you can
switch up the filters in your car like you do
in your house. I mean for different you know, different
um circumstances. I guess you know, during police seas and
you might want to up out a little bit, you know,
check it a little more regularly, uh than you normally would.

(38:30):
And cabin air filters. People don't ever check cabin air filters.
I know that. It's one of those things. When you
like a quick oil change place, they always want you
to change your cabin air filter. And usually the line
is right, I'll do that when I get home or whatever,
and then no one ever does it right because it's
super expensive there. It's really not expensive if you buy
it off the autoparts shelf, you know, the store, and

(38:51):
uh and take it home and do it yourself. It's
very easy. It's usually around the glove box area and
it long no it's very very fast. I mean very
few cars required you to do much more than you know,
like twist a couple of little connectors often and there's
like a little a little shelf. You just pull the
old one out and put the new one in. It's
that easy, and you will you will notice the difference
most likely, yeah, because you're gonna have less dust and

(39:11):
and just junk floating around in the air in your car.
And here's here's another thing. This this next tip. It's
it's weird to me because it occurs to me that
this this is something most people would understand, but it
has perhaps an alterior motive behind it, or it may
for you friends and neighbors. The tip is to wash

(39:35):
the exterior of your car. Duh, right, wash your car,
scrub the door jams, uh, get the dirt off the
weather stripping, and check on those weather strips to make
sure that they aren't torn, split, leaking, or otherwise deteriorating.
So if you have someone in your friend or family

(39:56):
group who it's like not a car person, especially if
it's like a kid or your spouse or something, and
their car is just dirty and it's an embarrassment and
they need to get it taken care of and they
don't care how their car looks. Now you can make
it an issue of their health, you know what I mean?
The game like, look, I know you don't care about

(40:17):
washing the car, but we have children, you know what
I mean. That's a little intense, that's a little extreme,
that would be yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. But
but I'm just saying you drive the point home. If
we're means, just justify the means kind of approach to
car Washington that we're talking about. To think of the children,
What about the kids. Don't do it for yourself, do

(40:40):
it for your future. Wash your car for your future, folks,
clean out those door jams or else the kids will
be sick right in and let us know if that works,
we we won't we won't snitch on you. Um. There's
also the you know, the thing of taking your car
to uh one of those full service cleaners, right, a detailer. Yeah,

(41:04):
like getting it just inside out, spick and span, all right. Well,
they know all the tricks, right, I mean, they know
the ways to get into all those little spaces, and
they have all the right brushes and tools to do
all that, right, But they can get expensive I wouldn't
want to do it. Yeah, but they've got the right
attachments for the vacuum to get in between the seats
and you know all around. I know that you can,
you know, create something like that on your own if

(41:24):
you wanted to by buying the right stuff for your
your shop back or whatever. But um, you know, the
idea is that you have a regular schedule and you
clean your car and then then it's not so bad
when you do. You have to do it. So the
idea would be like, um, like a house clean right,
I mean, like you you clean it on a regular schedule.
Now that could be just once a quarter, it could

(41:45):
be uh once a season. However, you want to look
at this, but just if you do it regularly, you'll
find that it's a lot easier to clean once you're
you're on a schedule like that, because you know it's
it's cleaned more frequently. It's not like you know, a
once a year occurrence. When you get in there and
vacuum and and dust everything and you know, make sure
that the door jams are all clean and all that.
It becomes a lot simpler and it allows you to
stay on top of things, like you know, the seals.

(42:06):
If the seals are bad. If you know you do
have a leak somewhere, you're able to find it a
little faster, you know than waiting a full year or
find something like that. That be worst case scenario. But um, yeah,
just stay on a regular schedule and you'll find it.
It's a lot easier. And one thing everybody should always
have in their car, no exceptions, no caveats. Always have

(42:26):
a dust rag. Oh yeah, that's a good idea. You
can it's it doesn't take up much space and it's
not a hassle to use. There's no excuse to not
have one. I always have a microfiber cloth and and
if you need to, I mean if you let's say,
you know, a flock of birds flies over your car,
and you know there's the the end result. I think
everybody knows what the end result of that would be. Um,

(42:46):
you can use you know, a little bottle of water
or something and and get that off the paint right away. Um,
of course you have to get a new rag in
the car then, But if you have a dust rag
in the car, I know I look crazy, but sometimes
I'm at a stoplight or something and I'll have you know,
dust off the game ages or something. Um. You know, again,
it depends on the way the lights coming into the car.
Sometimes you see things that are like like you're like, man,
how how dusty did my dash get just the last week?

(43:09):
And I watched it last week? Um, you know, the
lights hitting it, just write it, you know, when you're
going home or something. Afternoon light. So I stopped at
a stop light, and I know, I know, I look insane.
I pull out the dust dragon, a quick swipe over
the over the dashboard, maybe like you know, touch up
the rear view mirror something. But but little things like
that help. Yeah, I mean it helps and and get

(43:30):
some of that dust and pollen and stuff. It knocks
it down and then later you can vacuum it all out.
And I have a question for you about this one.
We talked about v O c s. When they slowly
release over time into the interior of your vehicle, it's
called off gassing. It usually happens, um. It often happens
because of heat, you know, when that temperature change encourages

(43:52):
the soft gassing. So a lot of cars have vinyl
and plastic in them, and that's a good thing overall.
It holds down the growth of my um, but it
releases these v O C s. And the question I
have for you is, what do you think about this,
this idea of washing the vinyl and plastic washing it? Yeah?

(44:13):
How often should you do that? Because I found some
stuff that said, you know, take two tablespoons of detergent
in two quarts of water, uh, and then set up
this stuff and then wipe it down with the dry cloth?
Am I being lazy? No? No, that's not lazy. I know,
it just sounds like a lot. I prefer just the
stuff you get in the spray bottle. That's real simple.

(44:34):
I mean the stuff that's like non non glare. You know,
it doesn't leave an oily finish or anything. It's just
it's just a clean solution UM. Rather than getting out
a big bucket of you know, sudsy water and doing that,
it seems like there's just too much that can go
wrong there. You're gonna get water inside you know, switches
and you're gonna get water inside. It's good because it's
just it's a sloppy way to do it. I think

(44:54):
I know that you can kind of control how much
you get on there. You're not splashing the whole bucket
on your dash or anything. Of course, Uh, you know
you're being you're being careful, but I just prefer, you know,
being able to control it with you know, the mist
spray or whatever that they that they provide at the
auto stores, you know, autoparts store, you know, again, not
something that's oily, not something that's gonna leave a shine.
You know that that's gonna be distracting, reflective in any way,

(45:16):
and also dangerous if it gets on the steering wheel
or um, you know, any part that you need to
grip onto. Um. But I don't know, I just I
feel like it's easier to do it that way. You're
not being lazy by not doing that then, And that's
a question because no, No, I mean there are times
I guess when maybe that's necessary, though. I mean, if
it's really stubborn and you don't want to, you know,
buy an eight dollar bottle of cleaner from the you know,

(45:38):
the autoparts store, you'd rather just you know, mix up
this the solution for a couple of pennies and do
it yourself at home. I guess I guess you could
do it that way. Yeah, I'm sure they're great results.
I mean, why why not you know, uh yeah, arguably
the other the other home tip for anybody who says
I'm gonna make this stuff myself. Uh, you can clean

(45:59):
glass with the true one half cup of ammonia and
one gallon of cold water, all right, just by window spray,
as simple as that, you know. You know, here's the
other thing, Like my grandparents always used to use newspaper
to to clean a windshea. I feel like this is
like a this is a dying um, a dying trick,

(46:19):
I guess, or dying um technique technique. That's a better
way to say it, dying technique, because well, for one,
a lot of people don't get newspapers. If you do,
it's just the ones that they throw you on your
driveway for free every day, you know, the ads in
them and stuff. Um. But I never understood how that
was able to clean the inside of a window better
than just you know, paper towel. I know, paper towels
are uh they leave lint and stuff behind. But why

(46:42):
not just use a cloth, like you know, the wash
cloth or something. I would love to hear the answer
to that, so right, And I think it's probably probably
comes down to the type of paper that it that
it has. But you know, you get your your hands
would be all covered with with the black ink and everything.
After that, it seems like it's just a big mess.
And you know what, I feel like we can fast

(47:03):
forward past the next two because we've already pretty much
mentioned them. Vacuum your car for Pete's sake. Yeah, the
vacuum your car. Yeah. So you know, here's the tip
that a lot of people won't even think about, is
that you can have a separate um, separate vacuum in
the garage if you want just strictly for your car.
Little dust Devil or whatever they have one of those.

(47:23):
You could have a small shopback even I've got a
small shop back that I have out there for just
for the cars, and that's where it stays in the garage,
and I think to use it often because it's right
out in plain view. Um, you don't have to think
about haul in the vacuum from in the house out
to the garage, you know, with the attachments and everything
you're trying to get in there. This one is just
it's a tiny little one. They can kind of carry
it into the car with you in vacuum. Uh, it's

(47:45):
really powerful. And you know, if you're ever in a
situation where you know, like it depends on your climate,
I guess. But if you get in the car and
you have you know, snow, your muddy boots or something,
you know, and you get all that stuff on the
on the carpet if it's a shop back, oftentimes these
are wet drive back, so no problem. But but your
home vack for inside the house, that really can't handle
that type of thing. So this is a better scenario,

(48:07):
I guess, a better situation to find yourself in. Any
what else is really cool? And I wish I could
remember the specific name of it off the top of
my head. Now, I've been in cars before that have
an onboard vacuum attached like to the center console in
the back seat. Was it a Honda Odyssey? No, they

(48:28):
have an onboard vacuum. Are you serious? Man? Yeah? Yeah,
I think other You know, there are other minivans that
have vacuums now, but I think there are sense because
they're for families. Well they're in the back. Yeah, it does,
it does. It's actually it's not a bad feature, not
that you necessarily have to have a vacuum in there
because you know there's ways around. Like I just said,
you keep a shop back in the garage, but I
guess you've got it on the road with you. Well,

(48:49):
those things are also so oversized you could just put
the shop back in there. That's true. Okay, that's true. Well, okay,
I couldn't resist bringing that up when you said there
was an onboard I wish you had. So, so you're
in a vehicle that had one of these and you
found it useful. Yeah. It was a sedan and it had,
you know, just like a regular four door, and it

(49:09):
had I can't remember the model, but it had this
center console and in the rear of the console, uh,
facing back towards the back seats, there was just a
small again like dirt devil or dust devil size vacuum attachment. Nice. Yeah,
and uh, the person who was driving it, as soon

(49:31):
as I got out of the car, they broke out
the little vacuum and started on the board on the
seat that you were on the floorboard, So you track
some stuff. And no, I didn't now hear something this is.
I used to do this all the time, and I
think I still might catch myself doing this. What's that
When I get into a car, sometimes I will sit
down first with my legs outside of the vehicle, and

(49:53):
I'll like, I'll kind of like knock my shoes together.
And I think, you know where I get that is.
It is from back when I would get in the
car when there was snow and salt and things like.
You know, I don't want to bring salt into the
car because that just tracts moisture. So I would always
make it a point to do that, and I kept
doing that throughout the summer and the falls and the
spring as well, and I brought that down here with me.

(50:15):
I still do that, even though it's not an environment
like that, but I still do that, and it keeps
the carpets cleaner. It really think I've seen you do that.
I have, and I don't. I don't do it all
the time now. I used to do it all the time,
but it's just kind of, uh, I guess, an unconscious
action that I do. You know, It's it's better to
do it when it's sometimes unnecessary than miss it when

(50:36):
it would help. Yeah, I mean, it's like I just
knock my shoes together three or four times, and then
I put my legs in. It's you know, it's a
weird habit. But I think you'll find a lot of
people from um areas like that that have snow and ice.
We'll do that. Or if you know you're at the
beach a lot, you might do that, you know, to
get the sand off off your feet or your your shoes.
There are a lot of people up north have what
are they called mud rooms, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, mudrooms

(50:58):
where you uh um. It's a room that you know,
you'd leave your boots and your coats and all that
stuff in and it's kind of separate from the house.
It keeps all that stuff out of the way because
there's a lot of there's not only a lot of
clothing and stuff you have to take off to you know,
come inside. But it's also oftentimes you know, wet or
dirty or muddy, and they just call mudrooms. But a
lot of places have mudrooms up north. And I think

(51:20):
we can safely skip the trunk. I mean, just clean
out your trunk. Clean a trunk for for PiZZ sake, Yeah,
for pizza. Open it up, untie, that poor guy let
him out if you see it. If you have like
a Cadillac like you by an old Cadillac and it's
got like a you know, a carpet that's rolled up,

(51:41):
but the carpet looks a little bit lumpy. Yeah, maybe
call somebody first before you empty that trunk. That's true. Yeah,
just call somebody. Um, don't don't call us, you notify
them there's a situation. And as always, if you don't
have a phone, you can reach our complaint department via
email twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

(52:04):
Just send a note to Jonathan dot Strickland at how
stuff works dot com. Yeah, you can report that body there.
I wonder if he's ever received any uh, any uh complaints,
complaints from our show, because you've mentioned this over the
over the years time, more so recently, I think, Um,
I wonder if he's actually getting any complaints. Well, I

(52:26):
you know, I hope to hear from because it is
his job to feel those complaints. It does seem like
he would he would send them our way if if
something happened, or say hey, what's going on? You can
you could also, by the way, Jonathan is a is
a longtime friend of ours fromt of the show. You
can check out his excellent podcast Text Stuff available in

(52:46):
the How Stuff Works Network. There we go, he saved it. Yeah,
a little a little bit of honey with the vinegar there.
But we do have something else that we should establish.
A lot of people think, oh, my my car is
smelling kind of mildewy, right, and maybe the smell will

(53:06):
just go away, So I should get an air freshener,
and like Scott said, something that clips on to your
vent or something that hangs from your rear view, etcetera.
You know, even like those little cans that you're supposed
to open halfway over time put them under the seat
or something. Yeah, yeah, all that all that jazz, Well,

(53:29):
you probably should not do that, especially if you are
trying to make your car cleaner and give yourself some
safer air to breathe. We'll tell you why after a
word from our sponsor and we have returned Scott, do

(53:51):
you do you want to break the news? I could
do that. You want me to tell him right now?
I think it's better just to rip the band aid off,
all right. There is a reason to not use air
fresheners or deodorizer is because oftentimes those products contain from aldehyde,
that's rightdehyde like in funeral homes. Yeah, yeah, and you
know they use it to be fair, they use it
to hold particle board together, and they use it for

(54:12):
all different things. But and that's why some people get
sick in their own homes because formaldehyde in certain products.
But air fresheners, car fresheners are one of those places.
These deodorizers that you buy is just it's simply one
chemical to mask the smell of something else. Yeah, I
mean of another chemical, I guess really or whatever. I mean,
whether it's mold or food or anything, but formaldehyde gross. Yeah,

(54:35):
and you don't smell it. I mean, it's it's masked.
It's got you know, cherry flavor or your cherry not flavor.
I guess you would want to taste it cherry scent, uh,
pine scent or whatever. I mean. But underneath all that
is formaldehyde, right. And there are some different products you
can find that won't have that stuff in it, but

(54:59):
you might to look around. And then also we're not
saying these air fresheners will kill you or anything. We're
just saying if you're trying to get away from pollutants,
that's just adding to the problem. In a temporarily pleasant way.
So let's go back to mold or mildew inside the
A C. Because when I had my them a very

(55:22):
first car, this was this was a problem. Yeah, I
think a lot of people have this problem. I think
it's really common for people to have a moldy, stale
smell coming out of their A C unit in their car.
And again, I mean this at a lot of people
just don't understand that. You know that that is a
trigger for some people. It's an allergy trigger. It's it's
it's it causes um a lot of other things as well.

(55:45):
It could cause headaches, it could cause um, you know,
just um itchy eyes, and can cause respiratory problems. It
can cause a lot of different health concerns. So, um,
the smartest thing to do, I mean, if you're not
you know somebody who can you really dig into this
and do it yourself. You can take it to the
dealer and have them check it out and figure out
where that moldy, milderwy smells coming from, because it could

(56:06):
be deep deep within the the heating and cooling system,
you know, back in the duct work where you can't reach.
They've got tools that, just like in your house, they
can you know, feed through there and look at the
air ducks and make sure that they're all clean or
or maybe they're not clean. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe
there is something in there. Uh, they can clean those out,
but a lot of times it's deep in there, you know,
like back in the in the housings, you know, like

(56:27):
back behind the dast where you can't get to and uh,
you know, it's in areas that you can't access. You know,
you don't have any kind of a way to reach them,
a way to clean them out. And dealers sometimes can
they have special tools, they have, um, you know, tricks,
I guess you know, they have the proper equipment in
order to clean out that system to make it make
it run fresh again. Um. You know, it's the coil

(56:48):
sometimes gets uh you know, build up a debris and
you know, dust and mold and you know other kinds
of garbage on it. And that's what often smells because
it gets wet and it stays wet, you know, after
the system shuts down. Uh, it's just a whole host
of problems that can be behind the dash that you
have no idea that stuff's going on, but it's it's there,
and you the only way you know it's there is

(57:08):
by the smell that comes out. There's also another there's
also another thing that people commonly run into, which is
the immensely irritating sound of water slashing around somewhere in
the car. Every red light, every time you accelerate from
the green light, you hear that stuff. That can you

(57:31):
can tell them, speaking from personal experience here, that can
drive you mad. Uh And dealers can fix that because
you know, a lot of those panels will have exit
points for that water to run through. Yeah, there's a
there's a drain hole or something that's clogged or plugged
up in some way, and they can free that or
they can create a new one, you know, a new
path for that that water to get out if if

(57:51):
there isn't one. A lot of times, you know, they'll
be technical service bultons that are that are posted or
sent to dealerships and you know, tell them, alert them
to the problem. You know, more than you know ten
people come in with this situation. You know, I've got
I've got water in this panel and it's staying there
for some reason, you know, after a heavy rain and
you know the car is sitting outside, I haven't driven it. Um,
I do hear that that sloshing sound that you're talking about. Um,

(58:13):
you know, maybe maybe there is a problem. Maybe there
was a drain channel that was blocked or maybe that. Um,
you know, they forgot to drill holes in, they forgot
to you know, make it allowed to drain. So that happens. Um.
You said, you said you've had this happen, ben if
you've from where, I mean, could you? Did you ever
find it? Yeah? It was the right side passenger door,

(58:34):
like the shotgun panel on a Pontiac Bonneville. It was
in the door. Water in the door the door. Oh
that's awful. So the drain or whatever had plugged up
and it was keeping water in there. So I'm sure
that led to rust situation. No, we gotta fixed pretty
well because I found it on a drive to Tennessee, UM,

(58:55):
to visit my family, and then one of my relatives
were driving to the drug store or something while we're
up there. Uh, he heard it and he was not
having it, and he was like, this ends now. So
it's dramatic. Yeah, well I was. I mean I was
just a kid. I know what this ends now? He said,
this ends now? Well, that I said, like that was

(59:17):
his it's his overall demeanor. I might be I might
be painting him in a bit of a dramatical light.
I liked it, though. It's like, uh, well this has
gotta stop. You can't have water in your car door.
I mean, that's but that's the type of situation that
a lot of people just um, you know, either they neglected,
you know, they just well, that's what that's what happens

(59:39):
at a stop light, and that's what happens when I
take off it. It sounds like water moving around, but
that's not normal. That shouldn't happen in any car. So, um, well,
maybe a steam car ban what if you had like
an old Stanley steam or something. You gotta carry water, right, yeah,
you gotta carry your own water. So there's a there's
a there's a there's a reservoir somewhere that would water
be slashing around him. But that's about That's about the

(01:00:00):
only situation I could think of where you'd like to
hear that. I think if I have a think, if
I'm driving a Stanley Steamer on a daily basis, I
have a very different life with a very different collection
of problems and triumphs. Would you have a monocle? Of course,
of a monocle in your stanleys? Here? I don't think

(01:00:23):
you can drive a steam powered car without one. I
don't know why. I don't know why I had I
associate that with somebody with a monocle maybe and a
pocket watch. Well, some old timey stuff, that's what I'm saying.
That's I'm getting at here. Really, you know, I I
hear you really made it when you have two monocles,
not glasses, just two monocles. I was thinking about doing

(01:00:44):
that for um, you know, the solar clips happened recently,
right and we in a situation where we only had
one pair of glasses, right there, three people, one pair
of glasses, and I was thinking we could rip these
in half and each of us, could you know, two
of us could have a monocle to look at the
look at the solar clips. But no one went for
that idea. Why well, I mean, it's just seems better

(01:01:05):
just share the glasses a little bit. But great idea, maybe,
I don't know. I don't know. How did you pitch it? Well,
just just as I said, I said we could, Yeah,
I know, I didn't have any kind of presentation or anything.
You got a power point or to start with a
bold statement like a ted talk, and then a question
and then like a story. That's how they always do it.

(01:01:26):
This is this is a lot simpler than that. It
was just you know, we're sitting outside and I decided
to have Hey, you know what, two people could use
these at once, but now didn't work. People got very possessive.
I know you weren't. You were in the office at
the time, but people have very possessive over those eclipse glasses.
And what's funny is the second that it's over, those
things are worthless, right, I mean everybody just throws them

(01:01:48):
away their left land on tables everywhere. But before that,
I mean you keep them tight, right, Because there was
a shortage, Yeah, people were on Amazon running out fake glasses.
There was a there was a kid, and I mean
like a child down the street from here who must
have gotten some of those pseudo three D glasses from

(01:02:10):
a movie theater and he was selling them. I had
to respect his hustle. Scott, it's bad to be selling
fake classes. Some people probably damage their eyes, but surely
they would notice that there was a difference. I would hope.
So well, uh, we're talking about preventative steps, right, I
guess we're loosely talking about preventative steps. So we could

(01:02:30):
take it back to some uh some cars, car car stuff,
something related to cars. I worked in the title of
the show in the episode, don't say the name of
the show. So, look, A lot of this stuff is
theoretically great. It's I we're talking about ideal conditions. The

(01:02:51):
reality is going to be much different. Um, if you are,
for instance, you work with animals, you're a baker, you
live anywhere near the beach, uh, you're walking on rainy day,
You're not always going to be able to keep your
car unless you're j Leno and you have a team
of people who do that. For even so, I mean,

(01:03:12):
think about this, and this is listed here, and I
was I was kind of surprised by this, but not surprised.
I mean, I guess if you're a hairdresser, if you're
somebody who works with chemicals all day. You know, if
you work in a lab or something where you know
you're exposed to different chemicals and and uh um, irritants
of some sort, you know, whatever that may be. Um,
all that stuff travels with you on your clothing into

(01:03:35):
your car, and then that gets deposited there sometimes you know,
in the seats or you know, on the controls or whatever,
and it's left behind and that accumulates, it gathers up
and grows and it and it sometimes can be you know,
if it's not irritating to you obviously you know that's
your job or whatever you do. Um, it could be
irritating to somebody else, you know, a passenger. So um.
You know, that's one area that we hadn't really thought about.

(01:03:56):
I guess as the transfer of materials, you know, from
from the job from job into the car. So I
guess if you're somebody like that, you know, if you're
like a food processor or a cosmetologist, or maybe like
we said, a painter or a welder. You know, someone
has like stuff on your clothes when you get in,
you can you can take the top layer of clothing
off and shake it out. You can even change clothes

(01:04:18):
before you get in your car. That's one possible thing
you could do. That's kind of extreme though what you're doing. Well,
if you let's see if as as a hairdresser, right,
Let's say I'm a hairdresser, right, the day, covered in air,
covered in hair. You look like a sasquat. I don't
want to get in my car covered in hair, right,
it looks like a sasquatch. Yeah, so what do you do?
I mean, they have a vacuum at your your office there,

(01:04:39):
you can you know, vacuum yourself off before you get
in the car. You I know, you can shake out
your clothing, but you're going to try. You're gonna bring
that hair into your car, and that's gonna be an
irritant for somebody else, if not yourself. But it's also
just gonna make your car filthy. It's gonna make it dirty.
You're gonna have a hair in the car, cut hair um.
The same thing with you know, if you're a baker,
you might have you know, cooking um materials on you,

(01:05:01):
whether it's just something simple like you know, flour or
yeast or whatever it is. But all that stuff again,
that's that's going to get in the car. It's going
to stay in the car, and it's going to be
an attractant for other things. I mean, if it's if
it's enough, if it's attractive enough to attract you know,
like rats or mice or um could be even like
bug like cockroaches or anything like that that that may

(01:05:22):
also find that appealing in some way. There's so many
different things that can happen that you just aren't thinking of.
I mean, when you you need to take to take
time to take the top layer of clothing off and
shake it out. I guess if you have a certain
type of job, Well, but what if you wear a
lap coat maybe and you can leave that there at
the office, but it's still your pants or whatever gonna
be covered with Your shoes are gonna be covered with it.

(01:05:44):
So yeah, you see this, Yeah, I mean yeah, I
mean they're endless examples of this. That you're an astronaut
and you get you get moon dust in your car
irritant to some people. Wouldn't that make your car worth
millions of Okay, I'm of course the moon dust me out.
Of of course, I'm joking. But you know, but you
know what I'm saying is like every job has something

(01:06:06):
that you bring home. Sure, well most jobs, I guess
what do we bring home? But what do I bring?
What would be on your clothing from this job? Oh?
You do the food stuff? Well, I was gonna say,
I've been I've been stealing Coca cola is uh for
years now. I'm embezzling those left and right. Man, I
guess the company pens maybe that fall out of your pocket,

(01:06:28):
you know. Oh yeah, yeah, they fell off the podcast truck.
Not so much a uh like an allergen though, Oh yeah,
you mean, like, okay, so for for allergens. Um. One
thing that I end up I probably end up bringing
into my car a lot is um if I'm hauling plants.

(01:06:51):
This is not really related to work, but I mean, like, um,
I'll go get Christmas trees for people, you know, and
those whose Christmas tree needles get everywhere. Oh yeah, and
uh and the sap and the sap. Yeah. And then
I think in our building, our job, just at our

(01:07:13):
day job type stuff, probably we don't run into too
too much, but we're around a lot of construction. That
might be a factor. But I hope, I hope I
don't eat these words later, Scott. But to be honest
with you, I have very few allergies. Or maybe maybe
I'm just living so filthy that I'm used to having

(01:07:36):
a low level of sickness all the time. That could be.
I guess, yeah, you've you've become accustomed to it. No,
but I think you're right. We may end up with
with drywall dust on us or something like that if
we walk down the hallway, because you know, there's always
new office spaces that are that are being built. Um,
and this building itself is very old. I mean it's
a it's nearly a century old, and uh, you know,

(01:07:57):
there's a lot of dustin and things like that still
in some of the back corner of the dusty corners.
I guess at this place, if you if you explore
it enough so there's a chance that we can bring
some stuff home. But but some people, I guess what
I'm saying is some people have jobs that do have
uh you know, a lot of stuff that ends up
on on them by the end of the day. If
they don't take the time to get that off of

(01:08:18):
them or to you know, have a change of clothing
or whatever. You don't put it in a bag and
take it home and wash it. Um, you know, that
can cause a problem, right exactly, Scott, I think we're
near the end of the show today. There's some valuable advice.
I'm gonna have to have what in the South we
call it come to Jesus moment about the state of

(01:08:40):
my car, because it's not near as clean as I
thought it was. And I hope that you have enjoyed
this episode, ladies and gentlemen. I hope it hasn't made
you too paranoid, but instead giving you some tips and tricks. Yeah.
Remember that's your third space, so you know, has Ben said,
And you've got your home, you got your officer school,
and then you've got your car, and and pay attention
to that third space because that can be making you sick.

(01:09:01):
I mean, it's it's a strange thought, but really all
the stuff that we talked about plus more. I mean,
if you look up some information about this, you're gonna
find some other eye opening facts about things, you know,
like strange about the formaldehyde and the air fresheners, right, yeah,
and whatever have guessed I would not have guessed. No,
I still have. I still have a couple of old

(01:09:23):
air fresheners, you know, like a bottom at the store,
and I just left them still wrapped. But now I
guess they're just gonna be uh stocking stuffers. Two people
I don't like. It's still mean. Yeah, I'm a bad person,
but not only for yourself, but for you know, everybody
else that there rides in your vehicle. Just be considerate

(01:09:43):
of that, you know, maybe take time to vacuum your
car and make sure the seals are good and all that,
and uh, just make it a cleaner place, that's all.
And then, uh the thing I am looking forward to
the most from from you out there, ladies and gentlemen.
So I want to hear the stories about the dirty
scars who ever saw, because we've got so many responses

(01:10:03):
when we asked earlier about which car you own that
was the most massive hassle. I don't want to do
too many spoilers, but there's the there's this great story
from a guy who just bought the wrong Mazda. Poor guy,
did you see that one? I did? That was a
long story but but well written, and uh, you know,

(01:10:25):
we may we may do an episode on hassle cars.
He has like a selfie of him. Uh, this guy
is a selfie where he's crouching in the engine compartment
or the most where the engine of his new car
used to be, right and still in his new car. Uh,
So do stay tuned for that. That's at least gonna
be a listener mail and in the meantime right to

(01:10:47):
us and let us know what's the dirtiest car you've
ever seen? Hopefully it was not yours H bonus points
for pictures, but we'd love to hear about it. You
can find Scott and I on Twitter. You can find
us on Facebook with your car stuff H s W
at both of those. You can find every other show
we have ever done over the course of our almost

(01:11:09):
decade long uh podcast. We're getting close livelihood here, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
we always almost. We always say we're gonna like, oh,
here's the big seven dred episode or whatever, and as
soon as you know, it just flies by, right, yeah, yeah,
we don't keep track, and then by the time we
notice it, it's when we were at the seven on
five or something. Well eight now, really, I think, so, well,

(01:11:31):
that's a great problem to happen. We might even be
close to nine. I mean, I don't know how. I
don't know where we are now. Oh boy, we're up there,
we're drifting spaces. Well, I mean, I guess I'd like
to say that we'll pay attention when we get close
to a thousand shows, but I just can't guarantee that
all right. So Scott says he's going to pay attention
when we get close to a thousand shows, but he
cannot guarantee it, like, how's the bottom of that bus? Yeah,

(01:11:56):
just threw us, um, But yes, we are excited to
hear your stories about the craziest, dirtiest cards you've ever seen.
And even more importantly, if you have a suggestion for
an upcoming episode that you think your fellow listeners would enjoy,
right to us directly. We are car stuff at how
stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands

(01:12:22):
of other topics, this is how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. M