Thread Number: 44943
/ Tag: Other Home Products or Autos
Water leak in car |
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Post# 466494   9/28/2023 at 22:28 (370 days old) by fan-of-fans (USA)   |   | |
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During hurricane Idalia we got a lot of rain. That morning after as I left for work I found water in my cup holders and around the gear shift. The headliner was damp around the sunroof.
Dried it all out and cleaned the sunroof drains by running weed racket like down them. Seemed to drain better and I hadn’t noticed anymore problems, but there’s been a musty smell since that I can’t find the source of. Last night we got 5 inches of rain. This morning there was a little bit of water around the gear shift, and water dripping from my front map lights. Uh oh. I’m getting so tired of this. I wish I could find the leak. At this point I’m not sure if it’s the sunroof or the windshield. I had the windshield replaced earlier this year by Safelite as it got a crack on the way to Sarasota. I have no idea where to start or how to find the leak and the source of the smell. I thought maybe the odor was residual from the first leak, but now I wonder if water has been leaking unnoticed the whole time. Oddly, I first remember noticing the musty smell right after Safelite replaced the windshield, but it had not been raining at the time. Then it went away, and came back after the first leak I noticed. Any ideas or experiences? I’m almost leaning to have the dealer try to find what’s wrong, and pull the headliner. But I know they will probably charge an arm and a leg to just look at it, and probably won’t be able to duplicate the issue, so I’ll be back to square one. I remember when I had my previous car, I had a fender bender and after it was repaired, whenever it rained a lot, the passenger side floor would get damp. The shop said they couldn’t get it to happen by spraying with a water hose, so I couldn’t get any traction on a fix. It never smelled though. |
Post# 466496 , Reply# 1   9/28/2023 at 23:24 (370 days old) by JustJunque (Western MA)   |   | |
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Hey Cole,
I can't begin to guess where the water is coming from. But, it's weird that I just read your post, and I just discovered water in our car yesterday. I took the driver's floor mat out to clean it, and the floor was very wet underneath it. I still haven't checked under the other mats. To the best of my knowledge, our windshield is original to the car. Of course, our car is a 2001. So, who knows what might be dried out, or rusted, or anything. I did have an experience with a van I used to drive at work. The windshield had to be replaced. They had a reputable place do the job. But, whenever it rained after that, water would drip in from the top of the windshield, and right onto my lap. They brought it back, and they couldn't find the problem. They did the hose thing for hours or something. Of course, next time I drove it in the rain, I needed a poncho. |
Post# 466499 , Reply# 2   9/29/2023 at 07:29 (370 days old) by fan-of-fans (USA)   |   | |
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Post# 466500 , Reply# 3   9/29/2023 at 09:25 (370 days old) by parunner58 (Davenport, FL)   |   | |
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Post# 466502 , Reply# 5   9/29/2023 at 09:32 (370 days old) by texaskirbyguy (Plano, TX)   |   | |
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Yes, do consult Safellite first if you think you may still have warranty on the job before doing anything I had mentioned above. Good point! |
Post# 466508 , Reply# 6   9/29/2023 at 21:53 (369 days old) by JustJunque (Western MA)   |   | |
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I'm sure I had been using the a/c. Between the actual a/c, and the defroster/defogger, I'm almost always running the compressor.
It's rained pretty good all day today, and it's supposed to go right through the night and into tomorrow. But, after that, we have a little warm-up coming. I'll definitely check for water under the car with the a/c running. Thanks! |
Post# 466522 , Reply# 7   9/30/2023 at 19:12 (368 days old) by huskyvacs (Gnaw Bone, Indiana)   |   | |
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Post# 466923 , Reply# 8   10/19/2023 at 16:22 (349 days old) by richmnz (Auckland, New Zealand)   |   | |
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there is a sunroof drain so check they are clear. Good luck Richard |
Post# 467925 , Reply# 9   12/6/2023 at 11:53 (301 days old) by Human (Pines of Carolina)   |   | |
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I brought my mom's car (2013 Buick LaCrosse with all of 12,000 miles on the odometer) home with me from visiting her at Thanksgiving. One of the things I plan to take care of before returning it to her at Christmas is to find and fix a water leak that keeps the passenger floorboards wet, the rear more so than the front. I've just got to get through the last days of the fall semester first.
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Post# 468100 , Reply# 10   12/14/2023 at 11:34 (293 days old) by human (Pines of Carolina)   |   | |
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So, we had rain this past weekend, quite heavy on Sunday. I finally had time to lift the mats and check the floorboards of Mom's car yesterday, and found the passenger front floorboard to be bone dry and the passenger rear to be only slightly damp, no more so than it had been after I had it vacuumed out as part of the service when I had a state inspection done. Right now, I've got the mat turned over on the back seat to let the carpet continue to dry, but I see no reason to spend money to have a glass shop look for a leak that may not actually exist. My pet theory at the moment is that the one of the doors on the passenger side was not completely closed at some point, allowing rain to get in.
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Post# 468655 , Reply# 11   1/13/2024 at 07:22 (264 days old) by fan-of-fans (USA)   |   | |
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I didn’t end up doing anything about this other than clearing the drains, since I haven’t had any more problems with water leaks. Although while we’ve quite a lot of rain, it hasn’t been any big deluges either.
The musty smell seems to have gone away, I don’t smell it anymore, even when first getting into the car. A few weeks ago I had a bit of a scare. I was coming home from work on a Friday night after dark, and decided to open the sunroof to just “vent” to let some air in, because it was a nice cool evening. With it being dark I forgot to close it, and we got a very light rain Saturday morning. When I went out to the car, to head out to some sales, I saw the glass tilted up and remembered I had forgotten to close it! Fortunately with the light rain and the sunroof being just tilted rather than slid open, the interior was still fully dry, and no rain had gotten into the headliner. If I had opened it fully, it would’ve been a different story. |
Post# 468673 , Reply# 12   1/13/2024 at 19:18 (263 days old) by Human (Pines of Carolina)   |   | |
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