Air Conditioner Noise & Leak?

[slick1]

1) Lift up the carpets on the front passenger side of the car.
2) Disconnect rubber hose (top right hand corner) from the airbox.
3) Unplug rubber plug in the bottom of the car (underneath the carpet) to allow water to drain
4) Stick a hanger or stiff piece of wire into the hole in the airbox (and shake it all about)

Only took a few minutes to do.

I have pictures if someone would like to see what the hose looks like (this site needs a file area?).

Much simpler than accessing it from underneath the car.

Much cheaper than the dealers who quoted about $300 to do it (said they needed to rip everything out).

The dealers also claimed they'd never seen this problem before.

The smell seems to be mold or something from the airbox/carpet... and starts to disappear after the car has dried out.

I'm really disappointed by the Toyota response. This is obviously a common problem which they should be able to diagnose on the spot.

The solution is probably to fit a larger hose and/or to provide easy access to clean the airbox.

This is a manufacturing issue... and Toyota should address it.

Thanks very much to those who posted information which helped to diagnose this problem.

:-)