Ok here it goes, during my trip to San Francisco i was driving my 00 Bonne SSEI and all of a sudden I heard this rattling noise coming from my upper right dash area. Anytime I turned on the a A/C above intensity lvl 2 it would make this rattle. Well I turned off the a/c and decided i would have it checked out when I got back to L.A in a week. Well I get back to L.A and take it to the dealers and they tell me that a rat got into my dashboard/ a/c vents and they had to " ac evaporation clean" my car. Well they did that a few times and my car smells a bit like old beef jerky now which is pretty bad. A few months ago I had problems with the trunk seel where water leaked into my car and i had to air dry that out and clean it so I was pretty mad about this. Overall my car is in good condition maintence wise but I am getting really unhappy about a smelly car. What should I do about the smell from the dash? The dealer said that if the smell really bothered me they would have to remove the entire dash and have every area of it cleaned. Any idea how much that might cost me or if there are any other options I can take. Thanks for the help guys. -Eric

Eric....from the land of fruits and nuts (I'm a native CA).

Evap cleaning instructions are in Techinfo. I think they used something smelly to clean it. I'd do it again myself using what that article up there says. I've done it twice on my own, and once on another member'* car. Worked great. Mild smell for a day or two, then fresh and clean. Also consider changing your cabin air filter. 00 and newer have them. Wish I did.
Dead rat smell may have permeated the filter.

For your trunk leaks, there'* alot of information in this 2000 and newer forum regarding those. You should have no problem then.

mmmmmm, dead rat....

Well I called the dealer in a vain attempt to vent about the$700 dollars in labor charges for doing like 4 ac evaps on my car and I was complaining about why the smell was still there. They tell me that they cleaned out the inside of the ac area, but the rodent pretty much got chopped up into bity pieces by the fan and splattered onto the inside of the dash. They told me i should just take it to a dealer and have the whole dash removed and just have them detail the inside of the car. Any idea how much that is gonna cost? T_T damn rat