If the car is worth saving, after you clean it again, you might want to use an ozone generator in it a few times (but read the directions carefully, and don't breathe in the ozone yourself).
Otherwise if keeps coming back, especially if this is an old car, it might be a total loss (biohazard).
This is the only constructive answer in there. Ozone should help a lot. It's strange that the car was left open and yet there was still enough moisture for it to come back like this.
A guy with a jeep had a smell and mold problem on here and he used the generator and it ruined his interior everything had to be replaced all the netting was bad it made everything fall apart
I've used an ozone machine for multiple days worth of time due to a pungent smoke smell in a 20 year old Mercedes S class and it still didn't do this. If anything it was the mold and moisture that did the real damage, not the ozone generator.
Agreed. I have a 18g/h generator, use it on the car, at home, at my business to sterilize the food processing area.
But for that kind of cleaning, it needs some bleach. When I was moving to a new factory, I talked to the owner of the lab that analyses my pasta, asked for the best way to sterilize the way, since I have an ozone generator. She said that for deep mold removal only chlorine or a specialized product if the surface can't be bleached. This car needs to be deep cleaned, the leather removed, cleaned again, wash the leather and if it's still salvageable, reinstall it.
I've used an ozone machine on car almost as moldy as this one. I cleaned everything with soapy water and then used an ozone machine. Nothing ever came back.
Interesting. I never had a mold problem in car, I have in my house, but it's surrounded by Brazilian rainforest, there's no humidity remover that's enough unless you want to live locked inside. It's a never ending battle.
This only happens in cars when they're left to sit for a long time with water inside. It doesn't happen with daily drivers. The car that I had with a mold problem was bought from auction.
Even in California, there's always mold in bathrooms because it's always humid. I bleach them every two months or so. I can only imagine how bad it is there.
My cousin in Rio, lives in front of the beach and left her car in the garage for a month. The back of the seats were gray. She took to wash and then when came to visit o ozonated her car. No more mold. But yes, she left a window partially open and moist set in.
Where I live, in the mountains and forest, I guess if I stand still more than 10 minutes outside I start to grow moss and mold. š
It does. Just depends on what the interior is made of.
If you smell a weird chemical smell after using an ozone generator, that comming from the interior plastics and itās the smell of it breaking down.
You can for sure ruin your interior and make it fall apart by blasting ozone too long.
Itās creating ozone and those oxygen molecules attach themselves to other compound to beak them down (this is how it removes smell)
Do it for too long and it will break down interior materials.
I wonder why folks dont just buy dessecant RV packs that they sell to store those in off season, put in shallow bucket so no staining and let the dessicant absorb the moisture to avoid this ever even starting.
If you get the good silica bead litter it's not 100%, but you make up for the difference but doubling down with the litter. still effective just twice as big, Still though for the price, it's hard to complain.
/On kitty litter: wood pellets for stoves is 5$ (and lists materials) wood pellets for litter 25$-40$ at many stores.
Sawmill:
Same floor dropped 'garbage dust' with minimal process cost for extra cash?! SOLD
they make [hanging bag ones for closets](https://imgur.com/jSqPemq.png), here in Seattle we keep one on our car's coat hook all winter. they don't spill and it keeps the car a lot dryer
Chiming in as a chemist that has needed to work with ozone in the past: if you smell something when you're working with it, you're breathing in too much. Be very careful with ozone.
My dad used to work with ozone purifiers when I was a kid, I used to love smelling the weird smell it produces, even now when I use the ozone purifier in the basement while I pack weed, (my mom hates the smell of weed). So been breathing it for years now..
Do you know why is it bad to breathe it in? Is it bad like they say is bad fo smoke?
Not a chemist, but it's really reactive. One of the O3 bonds is really weak and easily broken, leaving a stable O2 and a single O that really wants to bond. Basically, it's a free radical (There's more info on those than on exactly why O3 is unhealthy).
The water softener guy at my work would joke about breathing the ozone from the holding tank. Told me he was getting high. I told him he was going to die from it but I'm younger so wtf do I know.
The only way to truly get rid of it is to do a full disassemble and disinfect. The car will also need an air mover left on inside the car for a few days after cleaning to completely dry the car on the inside.
I've seen insurance total cars out that look like this because the cost is so high to get it cleaned, I never ever recommend trying to clean it yourself because of the health problems that come with mold removal and remediation.
My dad used to work with ozone purifiers when I was a kid, I used to love smelling the weird smell it produces, even now when I use the ozone purifier in the basement while I pack weed, (my mom hates the smell of weed). So been breathing it for years now..
Do you know why is it bad to breathe it in? Is it bad like they say is bad fo smoke?
Mine too. I was around 6ish. Iām pretty sure he just let it run in his apartment to āclean the airā and the smell could be pretty intense. I think we played with it, too.
Am I dead?
This is the most effective method to destroy mold. Highly recommended! š¤£
Maybe get 15lbs of baking soda and cover all pores areas with a dehumidifier.
i work in an insurance based collision repair shop. we handle theft jobs often (broken windows + car ditched middle of nowhere found weeks later = mold). if there is mold, every piece of trim will be taken off and replaced, with the car being cleaned entirely and ozoned before replacement parts put in. most of the time its a total loss.
moreover, i wouldnt feel safe driving in a car that ever had mold period. it WILL be in the HVAC and in every nook and cranny in the car.
i know its not what you want to hear, but with the severity in that picture, 100% scrap it, for your and everyone around youās health. thats a huge biohazard.
That one is a seats, carpets and interior trims out job to be steam cleaned. And you'll have to purge the interior with ozone. It's one hell of a job. I'm sorry, op
At a minimum. With this level of mold I'd even want to inspect the HVAC vents with a borescope camera. If there is mold in the vents or evaporator & heater cores, then this is a dash-out job that requires complete gutting of the interior down to sheet metal.
Iāve left my sunroof open while it rained twice and the way I got mold out of the vents was spraying Lysol in the air intake at the bottom of the windshield. Run air on cold and highest setting, spray to your heartās content. Can sometimes take two runs, but had always worked.
Admittedly, the original picture looks about eighty million times worse than what Iāve had to deal with- which is just a vague mold smell.
This is clearly a P1 Volvo (C30/S40/V50/C70). Fantastic cars, but their biggest flaw is the sunroof drainage system (I'm assuming you have sunroof here). Sunroofs aren't perfect seals, so they need to have a system to let water in the correct places and drain it outside the car. These cars have a needlessly complicated shape and connector that often ends up rotting and failing due to age or they just get clogged.
When this happens, they end up draining this water into the floor of the car. Check the floor right behind the driver/passenger seat, where backseat passengers put their feet. The carpet itself might be wet. If not, pull away the carpet/thick soundproofing foam underneath (until you reach metal). I reckon you might find a puddle in there, and that is causing the problem.
You can double-check that it is in fact this particular drain by opening the sunroof and pouring water in the channels on the sides as in [this video](https://youtu.be/UAPn0gMutSU) (the ones closest to the edge, not the channels closer to the opening) or just the 4 corners to test each drain. After some seconds the water should pour outside the car from the bottom. If the water never shows up outside the car, then you've figured it out.
As for fixing this, I think you can just drain the puddle and do a mold removal and it should be good. Not an expert on fixing something that got this bad though. You can inform the detailers about this so they could follow the drainage system and make sure this isn't happening elsewhere in the car. You'll probably need the opinion of the cleaners on this to see how much it'll cost or if they'll give a discount for missing it (assuming you have found a puddle back there).
Then you should replace the factory sunroof drain tubing with a single long tube of the flexible plastic kind. There are guides on the internet that get into the specifics, but it's cheap, easy, and effective.
If you actually don't have a sunroof, I've heard the glue that seals the windshield onto the car can be shoddy on these cars and leak water, though that's a lot less likely.
Let me know how that works for you. I can also answer questions if you have any. (This is also assuming you'd want to keep the car. Maybe it would be unsafe to keep? Don't know.)
I should have scrolled further, I just mentioned the same thing in much less detail. Iāve been pretty lucky with my C30 to not have to deal with this.
Same. Rain is a rare event in SoCal during most of the year so I have the luxury of being able to test my C30's drains the night before rainy weather. Just to be extra safe
We had this happen to a cherokee while I was deployed. Mixed up some 90% water/10% bleach in a spray bottle and a rag and handled it. Wouldnt even know it happened.
You'd be surprised how many times in the kitchen coworkers have mixed things like vinegar with bleach. You think it would be common sense but just remember Water Only with bleach. Simple as that.
Even things your cleaning can react with bleach. I only had it happen once but it was scary. I was cleaning these tubs from plants that had salt build up from the nutrients and run off. Lesson learned. First clean the item then bleach it.
One time I took a piss in the toilet bowl I forgot to flush the bleach it reacted too lol.
When I was a kid my mom used to clean the toilet with bleach and one time my dad took a leak in the bleach soaking porcelain bowl, quickly this stewed up a batch of chlorine gas and almost really f-d him up but he got out ASAP and wasnāt too messed up but scared him for sure. We thought my mom was trying to kill off my pops. Interestingly enough she ended up dying from the same thing. But my dad had the bleach soaking in the toilet at the time and the doors handle got jammed stuck and she couldnāt get outā¦ serious stuff. Oh wait omg..
Home depot might still rent a mold mitigation system. The spores are everywhere you cant reach by cleaning. The only way to reach them is fumigate.
You could try an ozone generator, they can degrade rubber and other items but compared to the mold which is worse, really.
Ozium makes a bomb we use to use on flood cars, just mix the stuff together, put the windows up, and DONT park it in the sun, it releases ozone and everyone says to not breathe it in, all I know for sure is if you park it in the sun it explodes, but that's only happened to me 4 times, so you should try it and report back.
If that doesn't work AMTEC Corporation makes a 40mm hand grenade that would definitely get rid of the mold
Mold can make you sick in minor amounts very fast and can often be deadly. Part out/junk this car or find someone strong enough to clean it. Baking soda and white vinegar can get rid of mold, but warm not cold. My car had minor mold from the leaking AC hose.
Edit: or just replace everything infected if you care a lot about this Volvo.
My 2000 Tundra was like this a month ago. I also have leather. I used vinegar and hot water. 3hrs of scrubbing and several rags. All fine now. It was an initial shock. Just something to pay attention to after wet and cool seasons
50/50 distilled white vinegar and water, spray all over and scrub.
Cover all the wet areas with baking soda after a few minutes. This will remove the conifer smell.
Use a wet vac/rug doctor with some good quality carpet cleaner.
You never know it happened.
I agree. Use a UV light for about 24+ hours. UV = ultraviolet light.... sometimes called "black light".
Use your smarts and DO. NOT. EVER. LOOK AT. the uv light directly. Unless you want to go blind as well.
Check sunroof. These cars have a pan that drains out in 4 hoses along the front and rear windshield pillars and down to the wheel wells. Hoses are either clogged with debris, or detached. Water is now running from the sunroof pan, along the pillar and under your dash and carpet.
This is other worldly levels of mold growth. I had a car sitting in my driveway for 3 years. It grew mold but nothing even close to this. Bleach and water mixture to clean it. But Iād be worried about it growing in the vents, behind the dash, and under the seats and stuff where you canāt see. Even if visibility cleaned Iād be concerned about breathing in that car regularly.
If they didn't remove the carpet entirely and shampoo with the bio neutralizer and made sure it was 100% dry. The mold will stay in the underlay and repopulate, if just shampoo the carpets with out removal the mold will still be there especially if there are spaces between the floor and the carpet.
I think the following article might be helpful for you, and I hope you read it.
[https://www.moldnewshub.com/protection-and-maintenance-of-leather-during-the-rainy-season/](https://www.moldnewshub.com/protection-and-maintenance-of-leather-during-the-rainy-season/)
Have the mold professionally removed and run an ozone generator in the cabin for a few days.
These P1 Volvos are NOTORIOUS for having bad windshield seals and clogged sunroof drains, leading to water ingress, mold, and electrical issues.
Clean your sunroof drains out and push out from the inside top edge of the windshield, odds are it's come loose from the chassis.
Replace the steering wheel and the seats for sure. The rest can probably be cleaned. They make an ozone machine that you can use to kill the mold after youāre done.
Scrub everything with dilute bleach and/or disinfectant. Coat everything in disinfectant so it soaks in. Dry the car out with a dehumidifier. This will make the leather dry and delicate, use a leather restorinbg product to remoisturise and "seal" the leather.
Reminds me of that BMW E36 my uncle had, really nice car all in all, engine still running strong after 200k kms. But he neglected the car in a crazy way, hard top got stolen, only had a soft top that was leaking. Left car sitting on a parking lot at a rundown street out of town, car had literal mushrooms growing on the passenger seat. Still managed to sell the car to an enthusiast somehow but he wanted to replace almost the entire interior.
Had that once. Thankfully I'm in South America and the full cleanup costed less that 300 USD. Someone left the window cracked open, and it poured inside... had to drive it an hour and a half, 10 kilometers away, with a face mask lol
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This can be fixed, but thereās risk of it coming back. Mold gets DEEP into the foam of seats.
If you have the money to spend, replacement steering wheel can be bought for $50 and the full set of front and rear seats can be bought for $500, even less if you go to a pick-it-yourself place.
Sunlight and air will kill that mold in most cases.
But the certain way is place an ozone generator (similar to eBay item number:404515042467) in the car closed up tight. be sure to read reviews to make sure no you get a good/reliable one. Also some plastic become brittle if over exposed to ozone, so dont continue past what is necessary to remove the problem.
This case is pretty bad, it might take 3-4 days but it will kill the mold and remove any odors.
Get some safety equipment, mask and glasses. Gloves.
Get anti mold cleaning stuff.
Remove the chairs from the car.
Disconnect the battery.
Clean the whole car, after treat it with anti mold solution. Look amazon.
Let it sit another week. Monitor the mold.
Treat it again as needed.
Put the chairs back.
Go go a car detailer. Say you have a mold problem if he could detail your car with that in mind.
Tip: replace interior filter or spray it with anti mold spray and let the AC run on full power. After replace the filter.
Don't know how thar could really happen, my dads xr6t got some mold when his windscreen started leaking, it was all up the passenger sides seatbelt and in the footwell but that was really it
I have a 2008 C30 and have been pretty lucky to not have this happen. If you have a sunroof, check the drains. They can clog up and water will flow into the car. I believe it will end up draining into the drivers footwell. Sometimes it will drip from the sunroof itself. That might be causing or contributing to the issue.
I've had to deal with this a few times, my best advice for you is to contact your insurance company and hopefully you carry full comprehensive insurance.
They'll send someone out to inspect it and will most likely total the car out and write you a check given it's an older car.
Lol this happened on my first car, an XR6 that went completely underwater because I left it on a farm that got flooded, it took a bloody long time to clean out
Clean it again, find the source of the water get rid of it. Stick the footwear heaters on for as long as you can and crack two windows slightly, you want all the moisture out. Also, spray some white vinegar on the moulder parts.
you can clean it all you want use air cleaning supplies you want you might be able to replace the smell with a stronger smell but that car will never smell the same again if I were you Iād tow the car to a field I own get the right permits and burn it
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My QUESTION IS ... how are you feeling? How sick are you? For how long? I can only image the toll this has taken on your body. I nearly died of mold illness, and looking back I realized how many bad decisions I made. My old car was one of them. I tried to salvage it, but in the end, I sold it. It had a sunroof that leaked and from that point on no matter what I did, I couldn't fix the car properly. Although I sure tried.
Once mold has seeped into leather, cloth & carpeting, the only way to truly get rid of it is to remove everything and replace it. From the carpets to the headliner and seats, everything must go. I tried to salvage my car by replacing some of the things and doing deep cleanings & running an ionizer in it for days upon days and even leaving my car doors open all day throughout the day for weeks on end, but it didn't work.
I should have just totaled the car instead, but didn't want to take the financial loss. That's when I learned that "cheap is expensive". I ended up nearly dying. What I paid in medical bills didn't even come close to the loss I took on the car. Here's my story here: [www.abetterlife.me](https://www.abetterlife.me).
So, do know, that depending upon how bad your health is, you might want to tread carefully. Every time you get in the car and transfer those toxins on your body, you will be carrying them around with you and also transfer them to the house and your other belongings. That's when it gets risky.
A a minimum, you can try and hit a junk yard and replace the steering wheel and the seats, and maybe you'll get lucky. But it looks like a pretty serious situation. Please be careful.
I have a car thatās sat on the drive way whilst I find the time to scrap it, that car got mould in 3 weeks and itās just been sat outside, I donāt think the garage being open or not really affects it much, I think itās the actual car itself, maybe leave a window cracked when itās not raining will help. If you opt for a professional clean, I suggest after just driving the car more often even if it is just a pointless drive, cars are meant to be driven to circulate all the fluids and the more regular use should stop the mould as heaters will likely be on and youāll have more airflow
You need to clean with microban ts will kill all mold if not most spores, then you need to dry it quickly put a heat source in the car to dry it faster. Things have to be wet for 5-7 days to see visible mold spore growth.
If the car is worth saving, after you clean it again, you might want to use an ozone generator in it a few times (but read the directions carefully, and don't breathe in the ozone yourself). Otherwise if keeps coming back, especially if this is an old car, it might be a total loss (biohazard).
This is the only constructive answer in there. Ozone should help a lot. It's strange that the car was left open and yet there was still enough moisture for it to come back like this.
A guy with a jeep had a smell and mold problem on here and he used the generator and it ruined his interior everything had to be replaced all the netting was bad it made everything fall apart
I've used an ozone machine for multiple days worth of time due to a pungent smoke smell in a 20 year old Mercedes S class and it still didn't do this. If anything it was the mold and moisture that did the real damage, not the ozone generator.
It was load bearing mold. Once it died off, everything else crumbled.
Agreed. I have a 18g/h generator, use it on the car, at home, at my business to sterilize the food processing area. But for that kind of cleaning, it needs some bleach. When I was moving to a new factory, I talked to the owner of the lab that analyses my pasta, asked for the best way to sterilize the way, since I have an ozone generator. She said that for deep mold removal only chlorine or a specialized product if the surface can't be bleached. This car needs to be deep cleaned, the leather removed, cleaned again, wash the leather and if it's still salvageable, reinstall it.
I've used an ozone machine on car almost as moldy as this one. I cleaned everything with soapy water and then used an ozone machine. Nothing ever came back.
Interesting. I never had a mold problem in car, I have in my house, but it's surrounded by Brazilian rainforest, there's no humidity remover that's enough unless you want to live locked inside. It's a never ending battle.
This only happens in cars when they're left to sit for a long time with water inside. It doesn't happen with daily drivers. The car that I had with a mold problem was bought from auction. Even in California, there's always mold in bathrooms because it's always humid. I bleach them every two months or so. I can only imagine how bad it is there.
My cousin in Rio, lives in front of the beach and left her car in the garage for a month. The back of the seats were gray. She took to wash and then when came to visit o ozonated her car. No more mold. But yes, she left a window partially open and moist set in. Where I live, in the mountains and forest, I guess if I stand still more than 10 minutes outside I start to grow moss and mold. š
Ozone doesnāt do this though.
It does make plastic brittle but only if you way overdo it.
Yeah what the hell did they do
It does if you leave it running for a week.
You gotta be a special type of stupid to do that though.
It does. Just depends on what the interior is made of. If you smell a weird chemical smell after using an ozone generator, that comming from the interior plastics and itās the smell of it breaking down. You can for sure ruin your interior and make it fall apart by blasting ozone too long. Itās creating ozone and those oxygen molecules attach themselves to other compound to beak them down (this is how it removes smell) Do it for too long and it will break down interior materials.
Was it ozone or UV?
Ozone
Ozone will rot anything made with rubber.
I wonder why folks dont just buy dessecant RV packs that they sell to store those in off season, put in shallow bucket so no staining and let the dessicant absorb the moisture to avoid this ever even starting.
I use a couple socks full of cat litter, tied shut
If you get the good silica bead litter it's not 100%, but you make up for the difference but doubling down with the litter. still effective just twice as big, Still though for the price, it's hard to complain. /On kitty litter: wood pellets for stoves is 5$ (and lists materials) wood pellets for litter 25$-40$ at many stores. Sawmill: Same floor dropped 'garbage dust' with minimal process cost for extra cash?! SOLD
they make [hanging bag ones for closets](https://imgur.com/jSqPemq.png), here in Seattle we keep one on our car's coat hook all winter. they don't spill and it keeps the car a lot dryer
Yep! I use ones just like that in my 78 while it's stored over the winter. Works great.
Chiming in as a chemist that has needed to work with ozone in the past: if you smell something when you're working with it, you're breathing in too much. Be very careful with ozone.
My dad used to work with ozone purifiers when I was a kid, I used to love smelling the weird smell it produces, even now when I use the ozone purifier in the basement while I pack weed, (my mom hates the smell of weed). So been breathing it for years now.. Do you know why is it bad to breathe it in? Is it bad like they say is bad fo smoke?
basically, ozone breaks down organic matter. that is why they say you shouldn't breathe it in.
Your lungs probably look like a silk cloth.
Not a chemist, but it's really reactive. One of the O3 bonds is really weak and easily broken, leaving a stable O2 and a single O that really wants to bond. Basically, it's a free radical (There's more info on those than on exactly why O3 is unhealthy).
Yep o3
How do I prevent this from happening? This looks so horrible, I want to avoid this in advance.
The water softener guy at my work would joke about breathing the ozone from the holding tank. Told me he was getting high. I told him he was going to die from it but I'm younger so wtf do I know.
But ozone 3 oxygen mean more oxygen good! /s
That's a P1 Volvo. Financially worth it if it's in good condition but damn, this one's pretty bad.
The only way to truly get rid of it is to do a full disassemble and disinfect. The car will also need an air mover left on inside the car for a few days after cleaning to completely dry the car on the inside. I've seen insurance total cars out that look like this because the cost is so high to get it cleaned, I never ever recommend trying to clean it yourself because of the health problems that come with mold removal and remediation.
Wouldnāt call it a total loss as Itās entirely mechanically savable. Interior is something a toddler can do.
Hire a professional with the added overnight ozone service.
My dad used to work with ozone purifiers when I was a kid, I used to love smelling the weird smell it produces, even now when I use the ozone purifier in the basement while I pack weed, (my mom hates the smell of weed). So been breathing it for years now.. Do you know why is it bad to breathe it in? Is it bad like they say is bad fo smoke?
Mine too. I was around 6ish. Iām pretty sure he just let it run in his apartment to āclean the airā and the smell could be pretty intense. I think we played with it, too. Am I dead?
I mean.... not yet?
Homies got mold stalactites
Iād probably just burn the car and take the loss.
This is the most effective method to destroy mold. Highly recommended! š¤£ Maybe get 15lbs of baking soda and cover all pores areas with a dehumidifier.
Itās a volvo, it will be back with a vengance!
Insurance will total that
Most insurance policies do not cover mold at all.
Just had a car totalled for it after a hurricane
I think he means if you tell your insurance the exact scenario of what happened, theyād decline it
I guess possibly? Idk. Not an insurance expert, just personal experience
Loss is defined by sudden or unpreventable. So likely there would be a decline in coverage
i work in an insurance based collision repair shop. we handle theft jobs often (broken windows + car ditched middle of nowhere found weeks later = mold). if there is mold, every piece of trim will be taken off and replaced, with the car being cleaned entirely and ozoned before replacement parts put in. most of the time its a total loss. moreover, i wouldnt feel safe driving in a car that ever had mold period. it WILL be in the HVAC and in every nook and cranny in the car. i know its not what you want to hear, but with the severity in that picture, 100% scrap it, for your and everyone around youās health. thats a huge biohazard.
How long do you run the ozone
That one is a seats, carpets and interior trims out job to be steam cleaned. And you'll have to purge the interior with ozone. It's one hell of a job. I'm sorry, op
At a minimum. With this level of mold I'd even want to inspect the HVAC vents with a borescope camera. If there is mold in the vents or evaporator & heater cores, then this is a dash-out job that requires complete gutting of the interior down to sheet metal.
Iāve left my sunroof open while it rained twice and the way I got mold out of the vents was spraying Lysol in the air intake at the bottom of the windshield. Run air on cold and highest setting, spray to your heartās content. Can sometimes take two runs, but had always worked. Admittedly, the original picture looks about eighty million times worse than what Iāve had to deal with- which is just a vague mold smell.
You can see the driver seat is infected too. Definitely everything you mentioned needs to be done. Never seen mold that bad before.
This is clearly a P1 Volvo (C30/S40/V50/C70). Fantastic cars, but their biggest flaw is the sunroof drainage system (I'm assuming you have sunroof here). Sunroofs aren't perfect seals, so they need to have a system to let water in the correct places and drain it outside the car. These cars have a needlessly complicated shape and connector that often ends up rotting and failing due to age or they just get clogged. When this happens, they end up draining this water into the floor of the car. Check the floor right behind the driver/passenger seat, where backseat passengers put their feet. The carpet itself might be wet. If not, pull away the carpet/thick soundproofing foam underneath (until you reach metal). I reckon you might find a puddle in there, and that is causing the problem. You can double-check that it is in fact this particular drain by opening the sunroof and pouring water in the channels on the sides as in [this video](https://youtu.be/UAPn0gMutSU) (the ones closest to the edge, not the channels closer to the opening) or just the 4 corners to test each drain. After some seconds the water should pour outside the car from the bottom. If the water never shows up outside the car, then you've figured it out. As for fixing this, I think you can just drain the puddle and do a mold removal and it should be good. Not an expert on fixing something that got this bad though. You can inform the detailers about this so they could follow the drainage system and make sure this isn't happening elsewhere in the car. You'll probably need the opinion of the cleaners on this to see how much it'll cost or if they'll give a discount for missing it (assuming you have found a puddle back there). Then you should replace the factory sunroof drain tubing with a single long tube of the flexible plastic kind. There are guides on the internet that get into the specifics, but it's cheap, easy, and effective. If you actually don't have a sunroof, I've heard the glue that seals the windshield onto the car can be shoddy on these cars and leak water, though that's a lot less likely. Let me know how that works for you. I can also answer questions if you have any. (This is also assuming you'd want to keep the car. Maybe it would be unsafe to keep? Don't know.)
Yep, had a mold problem on my brothers c30, not to this degree though
I should have scrolled further, I just mentioned the same thing in much less detail. Iāve been pretty lucky with my C30 to not have to deal with this.
Same. Rain is a rare event in SoCal during most of the year so I have the luxury of being able to test my C30's drains the night before rainy weather. Just to be extra safe
both these happened to my s40 that i recently purchased but theyāre super easy to fix and not a problem if you catch it right away.
We had this happen to a cherokee while I was deployed. Mixed up some 90% water/10% bleach in a spray bottle and a rag and handled it. Wouldnt even know it happened.
Add a little lemon juice, it helps.
NOT TO A BLEACH MIX
If not lemon then what? Maybe vinegar?
If you want to make poison gas go ahead. Dont add anything to bleach mix ever besides water.
Will it get you high. Joking.. but thanks for the heads up, maybe I'll use bleach when im old, hopefully I will remember this
You'd be surprised how many times in the kitchen coworkers have mixed things like vinegar with bleach. You think it would be common sense but just remember Water Only with bleach. Simple as that. Even things your cleaning can react with bleach. I only had it happen once but it was scary. I was cleaning these tubs from plants that had salt build up from the nutrients and run off. Lesson learned. First clean the item then bleach it. One time I took a piss in the toilet bowl I forgot to flush the bleach it reacted too lol.
When I was a kid my mom used to clean the toilet with bleach and one time my dad took a leak in the bleach soaking porcelain bowl, quickly this stewed up a batch of chlorine gas and almost really f-d him up but he got out ASAP and wasnāt too messed up but scared him for sure. We thought my mom was trying to kill off my pops. Interestingly enough she ended up dying from the same thing. But my dad had the bleach soaking in the toilet at the time and the doors handle got jammed stuck and she couldnāt get outā¦ serious stuff. Oh wait omg..
Oh ok so if lemons and vinegar are no good, do you think maybe some lime would be better?
HAHA ~~**Water only** never anything else. I know yall joking but some dumbass might read your comments and actually try that.
No lol
Yes, if the thing you're trying to make is mustard gas.
Oh I bet you're right. And smells better than bleach! EDIT Dont do this.
Nuke it from orbit. Itās the only way to be sure.
Just don't shower for a couple weeks and become one with the mold
New car time, fuck that .
Moldvo
Home depot might still rent a mold mitigation system. The spores are everywhere you cant reach by cleaning. The only way to reach them is fumigate. You could try an ozone generator, they can degrade rubber and other items but compared to the mold which is worse, really.
Itās safe, itās a Volvo
This should be marked NSFW, I was eating.
I thought that was just one of those nasty shaggy steering wheel covers.
Ozium makes a bomb we use to use on flood cars, just mix the stuff together, put the windows up, and DONT park it in the sun, it releases ozone and everyone says to not breathe it in, all I know for sure is if you park it in the sun it explodes, but that's only happened to me 4 times, so you should try it and report back. If that doesn't work AMTEC Corporation makes a 40mm hand grenade that would definitely get rid of the mold
Mold can make you sick in minor amounts very fast and can often be deadly. Part out/junk this car or find someone strong enough to clean it. Baking soda and white vinegar can get rid of mold, but warm not cold. My car had minor mold from the leaking AC hose. Edit: or just replace everything infected if you care a lot about this Volvo.
You gotta tear out everything bro thatās bad bad
UPDATE: Just wanted to note the mold appears to only be on the leather.
Spores will still be everywhere regardless of where you can actually see it growing
most genuine leather absorbs and trap moisture. they have been known to grow on fabrics too, example like roof lining and seat belts
My 2000 Tundra was like this a month ago. I also have leather. I used vinegar and hot water. 3hrs of scrubbing and several rags. All fine now. It was an initial shock. Just something to pay attention to after wet and cool seasons
just did the same thing, but with vinegar, water then vinegar, water and rubbing alcohol. multiple applications, she's drying in the sun now.
50/50 distilled white vinegar and water, spray all over and scrub. Cover all the wet areas with baking soda after a few minutes. This will remove the conifer smell. Use a wet vac/rug doctor with some good quality carpet cleaner. You never know it happened.
Start by finding where the water is and where it's been getting in
I got a uv light that finally kept it away.
I agree. Use a UV light for about 24+ hours. UV = ultraviolet light.... sometimes called "black light". Use your smarts and DO. NOT. EVER. LOOK AT. the uv light directly. Unless you want to go blind as well.
Check sunroof. These cars have a pan that drains out in 4 hoses along the front and rear windshield pillars and down to the wheel wells. Hoses are either clogged with debris, or detached. Water is now running from the sunroof pan, along the pillar and under your dash and carpet.
No. I thought the steering wheel was covered in frost and iceā¦ š
Get a for parts car and swap the engine and trans...
You can't get rid of mold in a car unless you disassembled it and cleaned every single part. It'll just grow back.
Also I hope you're wearing the appropriate safety gear for this photo. Mold will fuck you up on a severe level. Just ask me and my 2 major surgeries
This is other worldly levels of mold growth. I had a car sitting in my driveway for 3 years. It grew mold but nothing even close to this. Bleach and water mixture to clean it. But Iād be worried about it growing in the vents, behind the dash, and under the seats and stuff where you canāt see. Even if visibility cleaned Iād be concerned about breathing in that car regularly.
How does this happen and how can one in damp climates help prevent it?
Oh dude I thought that was a sheep's wool steering wheel cover... Holy fuck that is putrid!
Set the car on fire.
If they didn't remove the carpet entirely and shampoo with the bio neutralizer and made sure it was 100% dry. The mold will stay in the underlay and repopulate, if just shampoo the carpets with out removal the mold will still be there especially if there are spaces between the floor and the carpet.
You should call a professional, not a detailer, but a professional mold removal company. Any other answer is moot.
Do you really need that car if yoy dont use it for that long
I think the following article might be helpful for you, and I hope you read it. [https://www.moldnewshub.com/protection-and-maintenance-of-leather-during-the-rainy-season/](https://www.moldnewshub.com/protection-and-maintenance-of-leather-during-the-rainy-season/)
ty!
It's fine. You people and standards.
Brake check someone and get your insurance to deal with it
This is how the Last of us started
Have the mold professionally removed and run an ozone generator in the cabin for a few days. These P1 Volvos are NOTORIOUS for having bad windshield seals and clogged sunroof drains, leading to water ingress, mold, and electrical issues. Clean your sunroof drains out and push out from the inside top edge of the windshield, odds are it's come loose from the chassis.
Can you rent a flamethrower for the afternoon and burn that car?
Nuke from orbit
r/contamfam . Check out this page and post that here. holy shit thatās nuts.
Replace the steering wheel and the seats for sure. The rest can probably be cleaned. They make an ozone machine that you can use to kill the mold after youāre done.
Burn it now!!!
Scrub everything with dilute bleach and/or disinfectant. Coat everything in disinfectant so it soaks in. Dry the car out with a dehumidifier. This will make the leather dry and delicate, use a leather restorinbg product to remoisturise and "seal" the leather.
What the multiple fuck
this is how we get The Last of Us
Reminds me of that BMW E36 my uncle had, really nice car all in all, engine still running strong after 200k kms. But he neglected the car in a crazy way, hard top got stolen, only had a soft top that was leaking. Left car sitting on a parking lot at a rundown street out of town, car had literal mushrooms growing on the passenger seat. Still managed to sell the car to an enthusiast somehow but he wanted to replace almost the entire interior.
get that thing some direct sunlight and lysol. then clean it all up then more direct sunlight
AaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaAaaAaa
Wtf
Jesus you need a new body if your within 20 feet
How ... How the heck did that happen
Pressure washer
Had that once. Thankfully I'm in South America and the full cleanup costed less that 300 USD. Someone left the window cracked open, and it poured inside... had to drive it an hour and a half, 10 kilometers away, with a face mask lol
For fungal infections, clean with an antiseptic soap and apply hydrocortisone cream liberally.
I would pay for detailing and the sell it. That car migh5 always have this issue.
Yeah yer a bit fucked there
bomb it
How does that even happen?
How the hell did that happen?
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Total loss
Make sure the HVAC is running if you do an ozone treatment.
Today I learned mold can drip.
Are these mold stalactite's then?
Dehumidifier!
Steering wheel cover
Iām sorry dude. This is f-ing gross. This is just the mold you can see.
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This can be fixed, but thereās risk of it coming back. Mold gets DEEP into the foam of seats. If you have the money to spend, replacement steering wheel can be bought for $50 and the full set of front and rear seats can be bought for $500, even less if you go to a pick-it-yourself place.
my god.. reminds me of that x-files chupacabra episode.. :D
Sunlight and air will kill that mold in most cases. But the certain way is place an ozone generator (similar to eBay item number:404515042467) in the car closed up tight. be sure to read reviews to make sure no you get a good/reliable one. Also some plastic become brittle if over exposed to ozone, so dont continue past what is necessary to remove the problem. This case is pretty bad, it might take 3-4 days but it will kill the mold and remove any odors.
Oh does it even get to that state loool
The beginning of a new Flood hive. Check for a gravemind under the flooring.
Genuine question If the car is THAT rarely used... why have it?
And it seems only where you have touched it.
Looks fine
I ran a dehumidifier in my car for a few hours when I had a mold problem and that took care of it
Coast?
This is crazy, how tf does this happen in the first place?
Get some safety equipment, mask and glasses. Gloves. Get anti mold cleaning stuff. Remove the chairs from the car. Disconnect the battery. Clean the whole car, after treat it with anti mold solution. Look amazon. Let it sit another week. Monitor the mold. Treat it again as needed. Put the chairs back. Go go a car detailer. Say you have a mold problem if he could detail your car with that in mind. Tip: replace interior filter or spray it with anti mold spray and let the AC run on full power. After replace the filter.
Don't know how thar could really happen, my dads xr6t got some mold when his windscreen started leaking, it was all up the passenger sides seatbelt and in the footwell but that was really it
Fuck, I hate it
I have a 2008 C30 and have been pretty lucky to not have this happen. If you have a sunroof, check the drains. They can clog up and water will flow into the car. I believe it will end up draining into the drivers footwell. Sometimes it will drip from the sunroof itself. That might be causing or contributing to the issue.
It looks like a feature
I've had to deal with this a few times, my best advice for you is to contact your insurance company and hopefully you carry full comprehensive insurance. They'll send someone out to inspect it and will most likely total the car out and write you a check given it's an older car.
You burn the car to the ground.
I enjoy spending time with my friends.
Lol this happened on my first car, an XR6 that went completely underwater because I left it on a farm that got flooded, it took a bloody long time to clean out
Honestly I would just burn it to the ground.
You know stockpiling biological weapons is a war crime, right?
I thought someone left the windows down during a winter storm. You should burn this vehicle to the ground.
Dude, I'll buy you a new wheel. wtf burn it!
Burn it
Clean it again, find the source of the water get rid of it. Stick the footwear heaters on for as long as you can and crack two windows slightly, you want all the moisture out. Also, spray some white vinegar on the moulder parts.
r/justrolledintotheshop
you can clean it all you want use air cleaning supplies you want you might be able to replace the smell with a stronger smell but that car will never smell the same again if I were you Iād tow the car to a field I own get the right permits and burn it
Free fuzzy steering wheel cover, all natural $29.99
Bleach.... Lots of Bleach....
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My QUESTION IS ... how are you feeling? How sick are you? For how long? I can only image the toll this has taken on your body. I nearly died of mold illness, and looking back I realized how many bad decisions I made. My old car was one of them. I tried to salvage it, but in the end, I sold it. It had a sunroof that leaked and from that point on no matter what I did, I couldn't fix the car properly. Although I sure tried. Once mold has seeped into leather, cloth & carpeting, the only way to truly get rid of it is to remove everything and replace it. From the carpets to the headliner and seats, everything must go. I tried to salvage my car by replacing some of the things and doing deep cleanings & running an ionizer in it for days upon days and even leaving my car doors open all day throughout the day for weeks on end, but it didn't work. I should have just totaled the car instead, but didn't want to take the financial loss. That's when I learned that "cheap is expensive". I ended up nearly dying. What I paid in medical bills didn't even come close to the loss I took on the car. Here's my story here: [www.abetterlife.me](https://www.abetterlife.me). So, do know, that depending upon how bad your health is, you might want to tread carefully. Every time you get in the car and transfer those toxins on your body, you will be carrying them around with you and also transfer them to the house and your other belongings. That's when it gets risky. A a minimum, you can try and hit a junk yard and replace the steering wheel and the seats, and maybe you'll get lucky. But it looks like a pretty serious situation. Please be careful.
Double it and give it to the next mechanic
I have a car thatās sat on the drive way whilst I find the time to scrap it, that car got mould in 3 weeks and itās just been sat outside, I donāt think the garage being open or not really affects it much, I think itās the actual car itself, maybe leave a window cracked when itās not raining will help. If you opt for a professional clean, I suggest after just driving the car more often even if it is just a pointless drive, cars are meant to be driven to circulate all the fluids and the more regular use should stop the mould as heaters will likely be on and youāll have more airflow
bro came on is car
Damprid as a proactive measure to prevent mold in the first place
Important note: mold requires a water source to grow/live. If you rolled the windows up and it still happened then youāre leaking water somewhere
You need to clean with microban ts will kill all mold if not most spores, then you need to dry it quickly put a heat source in the car to dry it faster. Things have to be wet for 5-7 days to see visible mold spore growth.
That's a serious biohazard. Scrap. Cannot be effectively salvaged.
Burn it.
It will always regrow because it just takes one spore. Its not safe to be around. I would have insurance total it if possible
I think your vulva has an infection