Range Rover Sport AC smells musty after parking, what is the fix?
My 2016 Range Rover Sport has been fine for years, but for the last two weeks the AC has a musty smell for the first minute after I start the car. It smells a bit like a wet towel that was left in a bag. After a while the air gets cold and the smell fades, but my wife told me she does not want to sit in the front until it is fixed. I park outside most days, and last week we had a lot of dust in the air, so I wonder if that made it worse. I also noticed a small puddle of water under the car one morning, and I am not sure if that is normal or a sign of something blocked. I am not good with cars, so I asked a neighbour who has owned a few SUVs, and he said I should find a Range Rover specialist serving MBZ City drivers instead of going to a random garage, because he said these cars have many small parts behind the dashboard and a normal place may just spray something and send me home. I read a page about Range Rover repair online, only to learn the basics, and it talked about dirty cabin filters, wet parts inside the dash and blocked drains in easy words. It helped a little, but it did not tell me how serious a smell like this can be. So here are my questions for people who know more. Is a musty smell only a small problem, or can it turn into something bigger if I wait? Does changing the cabin filter fix it most of the time, or do they need to clean the inside of the AC as well? Is it true that running the fan for a minute with the AC off before parking helps? I heard some people do this, but I am not sure if it really works. How long does a proper AC clean take, and can I wait at the workshop, or do I need to leave the car for the whole day? Also, what is a fair price for a cabin filter and an AC clean on this car, and does the price change a lot between a dealer and a normal workshop? I worry about places that say they cleaned something when they did not. Should I ask them to show me the old filter, or ask for a written note of what they did? The car has about 98,000 kilometers, and I use it every day for work and for dropping my kids at school, so I cannot leave it for many days. I also did my last service about seven months ago, and I cannot remember if the cabin filter was changed then. If your Range Rover had the same musty smell, please tell me what fixed it, how long it took, and if the smell came back later. Even a small tip will help me a lot. Thanks for reading, and sorry for the long message.