Peanut butter interior smell. Where is it coming from???

Did you check the air cabin filter

 

Ionizer or ozone generator? Ozone usually does the job. I would hope they checked the cabin filter when they did the evaporator cleanup.

 

i wonder if a mouse dragged in some bait

 

Was this car ever in a flood?

 

of peanut butter?

 

The interior bits are not very hard to strip out. Remove everything including the hatch area, seats, and carpet. Do a thorough cleaning and then let the car bake in the sun for a few hours. Open the doors and take a deep breath, see if you get a whiff of fresh air afterwards

 

Maybe the mechanic was eating peanut butter and had it all over his hands when he installed your cabin filter

 

Sounds like mold.

Take the car to one of those places that specializes in mold removal in homes, and ask them to check out your car. If they confidently say, "Yeah, this car smells like mold," then you can at least be pretty sure you know what the problem is. If so, they may be able to help you tackle it.

 

Have you considered asking Lil’ Thirsty?




Serious question: Have you had COVID? I’m a breakthrough case and my smell o’ meter is completely out of wack even months later.

 

I removed the carpet. You don’t need to remove the carpet to solve this problem. No way. The seats? Definitely. Very easy. Pull the 12V battery ground first, then move the seat back, remove the two front bolts, move it forward, remove the two rear bolts. Then you rock the seat backwards, and remove the two or three electrical connections. Each is unique and they are keyed, so you cannot accidentally reconnect them wrong.

With all three seats out… try the smell test again. Now you know if the problem is in the seats or in the carpet. If it’s the rear bench, you can scrub that thing down with a garden hose. The front seats have air bags so you can’t be quite as aggressive, but you can use a lot of soap and water on them.

If the interior still smells after you remove the seats and you shampoo the carpet, you need to pull panels. First take out the spare tire and all the stuff around it, then the plastic pieces near the rear battery. Animals can enter and nest near the 12V battery, so that’s the first place I’d look if the smell is in the back. If it’s in the front, pull the cabin filter and reach into the fan, which is like a basket, and see if anything’s fallen into it. You have to do this by feel. That would be the first place where something can enter.

Most plastic molding inside a Prius is easy to remove with a trim tool, but start with pulling the seats, see if the smell follow the seats or not, then if needed, shampoo the carpet. You can solve this.

When I pulled my entire carpet out, I filmed it, but I haven’t edited it yet. So if you need more help, let us know.