Hi - has anyone experienced a strong odor, similar to moth balls, in their new car? I picked up my new lease, mask on during this pandemic, and never smelled the odor until I got home. I brought it right back to the dealer, and they said that they often scatter moth balls in the lot to get rid of critters - they said one of the moth balls bounced up and landed on my engine and was melted to it. They thoroughly cleaned it and even changed the air filter. I picked it up and it still had the odor. Needless to say, the dealer was of no help. They "cleaned" the car on two separate occasions, each time saying it was fine. It is two months later and the smell is still there - and the heat seems to bring it out more.
I would be interested to see if anyone else had this issue. I have a 2020 Nissan Rogue.

Thanks

Sir, you win the award for most unusual problem thats been brought to us yet.

Welcome to Nico.

They may have cleaned the mothball off the engine.. but it is entirely possible that some of the vapors re deposited inside your air system...
There are some commercial HVAC cleaners intended against mold that are supposed to take care of it . they likely will work here as well.... you could try those..

Or better yet.. let the dealer try those.

They are the ones who messed up and it sounds like they admitted as much to you.
You have a beautiful brand new car..
things like this can ruin a mans bonding with this new ride...

Let them spend the time and elbow grease running running cleaning aerosols through your system.

Thanks - will do

Considering the times, maybe that be a good reason to keep your mask on. Never a good time to get complacent.

I am sure in time it will go away, but it’s good to keep the routine and hopefully you still keep the mask on when you’re out and about. COVID 19 is no joke.

I rather smell mothballs instead of the smell of a ventilator up my nose and the odor of a hospital any day.

^ Right, but in this case, it shouldn't be an either/or proposition. If the scent of mothballs was enough to deter C19, we'd all be loading up on them. And a standard mask doesn't filter out VOCs, which mothball scent is made up of.

I suspect the dealer rep is full of crap. "Bounced up and melted" is a stretch, and an engine scent (exterior) shouldn't enter the cabin anyway.

My guess is there's one or more in the HVAC system (open up the filter housing behind the glove box) and check.... OR there's something gross in the interior before purchase that they were trying to mask inside the car.

Ok thanks for the suggestion

What kind of fly-by-night dealership is this? AZhitman is right, it's a BS excuse.

I can think of two far more plausible scenarios:
1) Someone left a window open. It rained and the interior got wet. They're trying to cover a mildew odor.
2) They had a critter build a nest in the engine bay or duct work and they put mothballs in it to keep the critters away.

Personally I've never heard of any dealership using mothballs for rodent control on their lot, but having rodents and even ant colonies residing in a vehicle isn't unheard of (we had a vehicle with an ant colony problem).

They often find their way to the cabin filter and setup housekeeping there. Unfortunately Nissan didn't put the cabin filter behind the glove box. It's located down in the foot-well on the passenger side. See if the dealership put anything in there.