The system got cleaned only two or three weeks ago, with the clear message that it was fixed out of courtesy. The next time it would be charged.
Now it has returned, with a vengeance. What to do?
I could try to fix it myself, but I paid the best part of 50,000 for the thing and it's only 4 1/2 months old.. Not happy.

 

That is one of the things that is being addressed with my car right now. 1st time for me. I hope mine doesn't return.
Maybe if you stuff some flowers in the vents...

 

Hey, Mine has a foul smell too!! The smell always there whenever i just on the Air con. But after 5 mins later the smell is gone. But the smell is really bad, undescribable! Should i bring my car and tell the dealer about it ?

 

I picked up this A/C cleaning aerosol a few weeks ago and sprayed it into the air vents -- I'm trying to figure out where the air intake is for the A/C system, so Ididn't spray it in there -- but for whatever it's worth, the smell went away for several weeks. It came back a couple of days ago, and I'm planning on using that spray again. It's made by Wurth -- I'm at work right now, so I don't have the information on me, but it was good for a few weeks!

 

I too had the "smell" from the AC. Dealer cleaned once and could sense it starting to return. Read in a post somewhere about the problem being particularly bad if you have the AC recirculating the air all the time, or even in the auto mode, which seems to keep it in recirculating mode much of the time to keep outside odors outside. I have now switched to fresh air all full time and never use the recirculating setting and that really seems to have helped in terms of drying the condensation in the system that leads to the moldy odor.

But I agree w/ Fred, for a car this expensive, it should not be happening, especially since from what I have read this was an issue on prior 5 series cars. I know others have had this on all sorts of other makes of cars, but this is my fifth car since I got out of college and have never had this issue with any of them.

 

FF if there is bacteria still in the system then the smell will come back.

in the uk you should be able to get hold of THIS product by Comma which is excellent, just make sure you follow the instructions carefully.

 

I recall that the e39 has a microfilter that has been implicated in bad AC smells. Does the e60 have one of these? If it does, then perhaps replacing it may help.

 

It does and it is obviously the culprit again.

 

exactly the same here. my dealer did it for me last friday and hope the smell won't return. but the smell of the cleaner is actually worse than the smell from the ac before . it's been 6 days now but still can smell the cleaner . no wonder i don't smell the odor anymore .

i'm a little different here. i can only smell the odor w/the auto mode but not the recirculating mode . kind of strange .

 

And a few more up various orifices around the dealership.