First, pull and replace your cabin filter...its behind the glove box.
Second, check and make sure your drain is clear and flowing. It is sort of just above your accelerator. Pull the carpet back up there and you will see a molded black hose coming from the HVAC housing and going to ground. Do not pull it off if you even think there is water in there or soaked carpet time. Use a capture bowl or jug and lots of absorbent towels.

Third, once you have everything filtered and draining for sure, go to an auto jobber store. I don't know how stocked your NAPA, AutoZone, Pep Boys are but up here you have to hit a full service jobber...I use an independent shop.

They have and sell an air conditioner cleaner and freshener in spray bombs. The easy to follow directions are on the can but basically you foam your housing and wait a period of time for the scrubbing bubbles to do their thing (product one) and then you set your HVAC controls a certain way, fan on high, windows closed, on recirc and set off the spray bomb (product two) and walk away leaving it to circulate through out the ducts.

Alternately, any detail shop can do similar although they use ozone generators.

Sorry I don't have product names...its been a long, long time since I have used the cleaner/freshener.

 

So I replaced my filter last week since that was my first thought. I checked on the drain hose this morning and seems like it's leaking no problem. but haven't pulled it off I think the leak is just strong enough to say not plugged up. Started leaking within 5 mins of running the AC.

I guess its time to get one of those cleaning things

Thanks man!!

 

When I replace my cabin filter, about once a year,. I use one with carbon, and that seems to help.

 

Another thing with air...use it or lose it.

The refrigerant contains lubricants and such and it needs to be circulated.
Your air can heat as well so use it even in winter...I know it comes on in defrost mode but I always wonder if that is enough.

Year round, regardless of outside temp I use the air at least one day a week.

 

On a similar issue, I don't buy into all that stuff about air-con dramatically increasing your fuel consumption. I know that a lot of folks do and are cautious about turning it on as a result.
About three years back I was working on a house of ours down in London in order to sell it and that entailed me driving down there and back (Six hundred mile round trip each week) for about eight weeks. After week two or three my aircon stopped working so I switched it off until I could get it repaired. No difference whatsoever in weekly fuel consumption. Not a drop of difference. Also (perhaps more surprising) one week I went down with a section of ladder on the roof and brought it back at the weekend. Air resistance? Like hell. No difference in fuel consumption whatsoever.

 

What I used to do was open the vents to take air from outside,
Turn on fan/ac
Take lysol and spray it into the outside vents.
Use like 1/2 can turn ac off let it sit few minutes
Then repeat with rest of can
Will kill the mold/funk in the vents.

 

When you run the a/c, it compresses the air, which makes it cooler, but also creates condensation (water). If you turn your car off after having run the a/c, that air and moisture left in the compressor and in the vent ducts will get mildewie.

Usually it will go away after a few minutes of running it again.

One thing that can help this is to change the a/c to just the "vent" setting and pull in outside air for the last few minutes your car is running. This will heat up your vents, clear out a lot of that moist air in the ducts, and help keep mildew from building up when you shut off the patriot.

If you notice when you turn off your patriot, you can hear the vent system shut down and close up. this helps keep ambient dust and bugs and crap from getting into the system when not in use, but unfortunately locks in any moisture that was there too. So if you can clear out that moisture as descibed above before the system isolates itself, you can avoid a lot of those problems.

Sent from my SCH-I800 using AutoGuide.Com Free App

 

Once everthing is insured to be draining, I have always used Lysol spray to get rid of any moldy smell. Spray it in the vents near the wipers while the AC is on the highest fan setting and max cold. Then put it on recirc and spray in from the interior duct. I usually use about 3/4 a can.

 

Why not just go down to the blower intake and spray it directly in there?

It will get everywhere.

And you don't get Lyysol all over the dash and etc.

Turn everything on, fans on high, set to recirc and go under (I don't know which side on a Pat) and find the intake using a kleenex...just hold one corner and drag it across the blower...it will suck up to and stick at the intake.

 

good info guys.

 

PAtriot vent moisture/smell

Not sure that the A/C system acutally compresses the air, except for the little bit in the fan. The system passes the air over cooling coils. Moisture in the air condenses on the coils like the wateron the outside of a glass of ice tea.
The other day I heard a little gurgling in the dash. I made a sharp left turn and sounded like the Atlantic ocean crashing onshore. A few minutes later I picked up my son at car pool. No sooner had he settled in fr passengerseat than the water dripped onto his foot from the vents, although it may have been the resister. A few days later I felt hot water drippingon my foot whileit was on the accelerator. I spent the last few days loking online for the cause. Roof drains drain fine and no wetness along a pillers. I pulled cowling undert the hood and felt the air take. It is bone dry. The plenum under the cowling did have significant debris (live oak leaves andseeds). I cannotreach the debris in the verticalpart taht drains into the wheel well area. I pulled the vent motor and resistor. Resistor acted like a low point drain. Now I will check the drain on drivers side. Then will clean per the other posts.
Wondering if there are other access points to vent system to allow some wiping both for cleaning and drying?

 

Check the drain points under the car, blow compressed air into them. That should clean them out.

 

@allerbay:



The black drain hose pictured is the only one I have ever seen mentioned or spoken about.
Driver's side, on the tunnel, under carpet.

also, where do you think the water comes from that drips out of the HVAC unit when air conditioning is on? It is squeezed out of ambient air...so, maybe not entirely technical in description but the air con compresses the air...

The hot water dripping on your foot was because you had the heater on I'll bet...early morning chill fighter. If you have enough water in there it is dripping on your feet you'd best be really prepared to capture it before you remove that black hose.

I'll bet money that hose is gunked up with black slime something fierce.

HVAC stores sell little tablets you can drop into dehumidifiers and etc. to kill the slime, I see no reason why, if you live in an area that produces slime to the degree it plugs your drain tube, one wouldn't help out in the lower assembly in a vehicle too.

 

Some good info there Metaxa, but I can't let you away with this bit:

...

also, where do you think the water comes from that drips out of the HVAC unit when air conditioning is on? It is squeezed out of ambient air...so, maybe not entirely technical in description but the air con compresses the air...

...

Most people are familiar with humidity being expressed as a percentage without understanding what it actually means. A certain level of moisture in a given volume of air will give different % humidity depending on the temperature, the colder the air, the higher the relative humidity. So, if we have a quantity of air at, for example, 90% humidity, then cool it sufficiently, we can increase the humidity to over 100%, at which point the air is saturated with moisture, and the excess moisture simply condenses out. If we now re-heat this air (which is by definition at 100% humidity) to it's original temperature, then the humidity will be less than the original 90%.

At no time has this air been compressed, or squeezed.

What you are probably thinking of is the simplistic explanation which is commonly used whereby a sponge is used to illustrate the air, and squeezing it is used to mimic a reduction in temperature. It would be as wrong to describe squeezing a sponge as "chilling" as it is to describe cooling air as "compressing".

 

When you, in the words of Led Zep, squeeze my lemons til the juice runs down my leg that makes me hot.

The thing missing? A compressor.

What does a compressor do?
It squeezes.

Only in this case it makes me colder.

Only on JeepPatriot dot com can you expect such succinct and remarkable technical information and its all I really need to know, ergo it is all anyone really needs to know.

All the rest is magic...

 

...

All the rest is magic...

The compressor, when it squeezes, imparts entropy to the fluid, and this is an increase in heat. The compressor makes it hot, allowing it to expand makes it cold.