2020 ST Smells Like Manure

[Spacey]

Strange issue just popped up with my 2020 ST. When driving the other day I got a very strong manure smell that lasted over an hour. I live in Los Angeles, so no nearby source or agriculture use. Put the A/C system on recirculate and the smell went away. Back to outside circulation and it came back. Stopped the car and got outside to see if it was environmental, but no odor detected outside the car. Now a few days later and it is still an issue though not as strong. The car was recently in the body shop to replace both passenger doors, but it seems unlikely that would have anything to do with it, and as said before the smell goes away on recirculate mode. I thought maybe an overcooked battery, but I wouldn't expect it to smell like manure and the car has no electrical issues. Any ideas?

 

[RickyG]

Strange issue just popped up with my 2020 ST. When driving the other day I got a very strong manure smell that lasted over an hour. I live in Los Angeles, so no nearby source or agriculture use. Put the A/C system on recirculate and the smell went away. Back to outside circulation and it came back. Stopped the car and got outside to see if it was environmental, but no odor detected outside the car. Now a few days later and it is still an issue though not as strong. The car was recently in the body shop to replace both passenger doors, but it seems unlikely that would have anything to do with it, and as said before the smell goes away on recirculate mode. I thought maybe an overcooked battery, but I wouldn't expect it to smell like manure and the car has no electrical issues. Any ideas?

if you did not have the strange smell prior to going into the shop and you do now, somehow someway your problem is coming from that shop. Have you looked under the hood closely all around to make sure no dead rodent or anything got under your hood while at the shop? Also check your cabin filter see if it has caught anything that may be causing the smell.

 

[Spacey]

I made a cursory examination under the hood and didn't see or smell anything. Will make a more detailed check. If you just sit in the car with it not running there is no smell. I'll pull out the cabin air filter and see if there is anything inside it. The under hood battery access panel is missing so it appears they took that off to charge the battery and didn't put it back. They had the car i their shop for three weeks, but I didn't start to notice a smell until about two weeks after getting it back.

 

[RickyG]

I made a cursory examination under the hood and didn't see or smell anything. Will make a more detailed check. If you just sit in the car with it not running there is no smell. I'll pull out the cabin air filter and see if there is anything inside it. The under hood battery access panel is missing so it appears they took that off to charge the battery and didn't put it back. They had the car i their shop for three weeks, but I didn't start to notice a smell until about two weeks after getting it back.

If they took off the battery access panel that exposes the forward portion of your cabin air filter go out and look through the hole where the access panel should be and you will see the white cabinet air filter I bet something has crawled through that hole and contaminated your air filter