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Old 10-11-2016, 10:52 PM   #1
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Vinegar Smell

Hi all,

Hope you can give me some insight to a problem I'm having. I've had my 2007 Class B MB Sportsmobile Sprinter for 3 months now and only recently have I had a problem with a smell similar to vinegar. I cleaned the floors, opened the cabinets, checked the shower and nothing. I have water in my fresh water tank and the grey tank is empty.

I park my Sprinter in a street parking space outside of my home and air it out regularly but the smell is very evident when the doors are closed for a period of time.

Any thoughts or anybody experienced this before? What did you do to correct it?

Thanks,

E

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Old 10-12-2016, 06:31 AM   #2
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Maybe there's a mouse in the house?


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Old 10-12-2016, 07:49 AM   #3
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It's possibly the battery out gassing. Check the water level if you have flooded lead acid.
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Old 10-12-2016, 07:58 AM   #4
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The only thing that I can think of is RTV (silicone seal) curing.....that liberates acetic acid (vinegar) when curing, but is usually fully cured in about 24 hours.....so probably not your problem......

If they used boatloads of RTV during the build perhaps you just need to air the van out for awhile...
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Old 10-12-2016, 08:48 AM   #5
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I had a similar problem, and it ended up being the aftermarket floor mats that I had added. It took about six months for them to stop smelling up the van. I took them out and left them in the summer sun for a couple of days which helped.
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Old 10-12-2016, 09:27 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BroncoHauler View Post
Maybe there's a mouse in the house?


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I sure hope not!
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Old 10-12-2016, 09:28 AM   #7
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It's possibly the battery out gassing. Check the water level if you have flooded lead acid.
I have 2 house batteries under the couch so I definitely will check youtube on how to do this.
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Old 10-12-2016, 09:33 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Teutonics View Post
I had a similar problem, and it ended up being the aftermarket floor mats that I had added. It took about six months for them to stop smelling up the van. I took them out and left them in the summer sun for a couple of days which helped.
This might very well be the answer!! I did add rug runners I bought from Walmart about the same timeframe. I took them out yesterday and will run them thru the washer and set them out in the sun for the day. I'll report back once I am able to air the cabin out.

Thanks for all the feedback.
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Old 10-18-2016, 12:21 PM   #9
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UPDATE: it wasn't the rug runners after all. I placed them in my other car to take to get cleaned and after a week (procrastinator) and no smell at all. I am stumped. I'll be camping with other Sprinters at the NorCal Sprinters Campout at Lake Concow in Oroville CA in a few days and hopefully we will be able to pinpoint and fix the problem.

E
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Old 10-18-2016, 01:21 PM   #10
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I'll definitely second the suggestion that it might have something to do with battery gasses......I went and looked at a couple SMB's before I bought mine, and one of them had a house battery with a cell that had gone bad. The smell filling the van was like something ridiculously organic-acrid, pungent and bitter/sweet and noxious.....kind of vinegar-ey......it was unbelievably repulsive.

At the time neither the seller (or I) had any idea what the smell was, he seemed pretty confused as to what could have been making the stink. A day later he called and let me know that he had indeed figured it out to be that house battery failing stupendously.

Not only horrendous stink, but it can't be great for your life expectancy to be inhaling much of that stuff.

Or --- as Herb (BroncoHauler) above mentioned too -- how about that mouse theory? Could some kind of critter have crawled into the dash/HVAC vents and died?

We always had to pull all sorts of mouse nests out of the cars we stored for the winter. Sometimes you'd find a really cute (but really sad) brood of mice-lings that hadn't survived the winter, but were still curled up, in a permanent slumber, in amongst all the seat-stuffings/twigs/fuzz that their parents had crafted a nest out of. Usually up against the heater core inside the ductwork.

Cute....but not sweet-smelling, to be sure.
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