Water Leaks into Passenger Compartment
krushmoto
05-21-2007, 01:45 AM
Have a 99 GC Sport 3.8L. When I'm parked level or uphill and it rains water leaks into the passenger compartment soaking the carpet. When it's parked downhill no leaks no matter how hard it rains.
I think the rain is leaking into the blower motor since when it leaks into the car and I turn on the blower I can hear water kind of swishing around and it's a little slow.
Anyone have this problem and/or know how to fix it?
:banghead:
I think the rain is leaking into the blower motor since when it leaks into the car and I turn on the blower I can hear water kind of swishing around and it's a little slow.
Anyone have this problem and/or know how to fix it?
:banghead:
webbch
05-21-2007, 11:00 AM
This may be worth checking....
I bought our van in late November 2006. Around January (2007), my family and I were just flying back home and picked up our van at the airport to drive it home. On the way home, I noticed that whenever we were accelerating or going uphill, I could see water dripping from the bottom of the glove compartment down onto the carpet. I immediately put something there to soak up the water. Over the next several weeks, I paid very close attention to it, but couldn't recreate the problem (I live in Arizona where we don't get much rain).
Fast forward a couple of months and I'm finally getting around to doing spark plugs, wires, valve cover gaskets etc, the whole nine yards, since this is a new-to-me van. I decide that removing the intake plenum is the way to go for me to get at the rear plugs. As everyone knows, this necessitates removing the wiper cowl. As I'm removing the cover of the wiper cowl, I notice that I effectively have a bathtub inside of it, currently filled with water. It had rained the night before, but no rain for at least the last 12 hours, and still water in it. Come to find out there are two drains inside of this wiper cowl and both of them were plugged (also caused a mysterious problem with the wipers stopping part way up the windshield, I noted that the wiper motor was partially submerged in water - this problem went away after removing the water and letting the wiper motor dry).
If the wiper cowl fills up with water, there are several cutouts in the firewall that lead into the passenger side compartment. The really bad part is that by allowing water to enter this way, you allow it to seep *underneath* the carpet. The carpet in these vans have a rubber backing, so assuming there are no cracks in it, water that is spilled on top of the carpet *shouldn't* seep below into the carpet pad. Unfortunately, if you let water in *underneath* the carpet, it immediately soaks the carpet pad, and the pad will not dry without pulling back the carpet, period. Rust and mositure will ensue underneath, guaranteed.
In my case, I removed all of the carpet from the van to let it dry. I then removed the front half of the carpet padding as it was soaked (even though the top side carpet was dry in most areas) and replaced it. You could let it dry, but it then remains compressed and has no real give to it the way carpet padding is supposed to. As far as the carpet goes, all in all, I think I spent about $150 to replace the carpet padding (Jute padding from my local auto upholstery shop runs $8.50/yd and I ended up having to double up on the thickness to match existing pad thickness, then had to get the trim adhesive to glue the new pad to the existing carpet, then spent an additional $20 to have the carpet professionally cleaned at the same time my wife was having the carpets in the house cleaned. This doesn't factor in the 4-5 hours you'll spend cutting out the new pad, using the old one as a template (noting that double layer jute padding doesn't cut well at all with even heavy duty scissors, ended up using tin snips, which worked barely OK) and carefully gluing it to the back side of the carpet. As a reference point, you can buy a new pre-molded carpet for these vans for about $250-300 and they come with the jute padding already on it and everything, so in retrospect it may have been worthwhile to do that.
That's just the carpet. Water had apparently puddled up by the center console supports and had competely rusted the hex on one of the bolts securing it to the floor pan and I had to weld a bolt on top of it in order to remove the bolt. Then wire brushed out all the rust. Dried the wiring that runs under the carpet down the center line of the van.
My point is this: If a good amount of water has seeped *underneath* your carpet, you're looking at a lot of work to properly fix the problem. In my case, I hadn't noticed any wetness on the carpet for weeks prior to finding the plugged drains in the cowl, yet the carpet pad was still soaked all the way back to the middle row seats.
Obviously, if your source of water is coming from the top, perhaps you have a lot less to worry about. Can't comment on that.
FYI: Checking to see if your cowl drains are plugged is very little effort. Just unplug the drain tubes from the left and right side of the engine compartment and jam a screwdriver up into them and see if any water comes out.
I bought our van in late November 2006. Around January (2007), my family and I were just flying back home and picked up our van at the airport to drive it home. On the way home, I noticed that whenever we were accelerating or going uphill, I could see water dripping from the bottom of the glove compartment down onto the carpet. I immediately put something there to soak up the water. Over the next several weeks, I paid very close attention to it, but couldn't recreate the problem (I live in Arizona where we don't get much rain).
Fast forward a couple of months and I'm finally getting around to doing spark plugs, wires, valve cover gaskets etc, the whole nine yards, since this is a new-to-me van. I decide that removing the intake plenum is the way to go for me to get at the rear plugs. As everyone knows, this necessitates removing the wiper cowl. As I'm removing the cover of the wiper cowl, I notice that I effectively have a bathtub inside of it, currently filled with water. It had rained the night before, but no rain for at least the last 12 hours, and still water in it. Come to find out there are two drains inside of this wiper cowl and both of them were plugged (also caused a mysterious problem with the wipers stopping part way up the windshield, I noted that the wiper motor was partially submerged in water - this problem went away after removing the water and letting the wiper motor dry).
If the wiper cowl fills up with water, there are several cutouts in the firewall that lead into the passenger side compartment. The really bad part is that by allowing water to enter this way, you allow it to seep *underneath* the carpet. The carpet in these vans have a rubber backing, so assuming there are no cracks in it, water that is spilled on top of the carpet *shouldn't* seep below into the carpet pad. Unfortunately, if you let water in *underneath* the carpet, it immediately soaks the carpet pad, and the pad will not dry without pulling back the carpet, period. Rust and mositure will ensue underneath, guaranteed.
In my case, I removed all of the carpet from the van to let it dry. I then removed the front half of the carpet padding as it was soaked (even though the top side carpet was dry in most areas) and replaced it. You could let it dry, but it then remains compressed and has no real give to it the way carpet padding is supposed to. As far as the carpet goes, all in all, I think I spent about $150 to replace the carpet padding (Jute padding from my local auto upholstery shop runs $8.50/yd and I ended up having to double up on the thickness to match existing pad thickness, then had to get the trim adhesive to glue the new pad to the existing carpet, then spent an additional $20 to have the carpet professionally cleaned at the same time my wife was having the carpets in the house cleaned. This doesn't factor in the 4-5 hours you'll spend cutting out the new pad, using the old one as a template (noting that double layer jute padding doesn't cut well at all with even heavy duty scissors, ended up using tin snips, which worked barely OK) and carefully gluing it to the back side of the carpet. As a reference point, you can buy a new pre-molded carpet for these vans for about $250-300 and they come with the jute padding already on it and everything, so in retrospect it may have been worthwhile to do that.
That's just the carpet. Water had apparently puddled up by the center console supports and had competely rusted the hex on one of the bolts securing it to the floor pan and I had to weld a bolt on top of it in order to remove the bolt. Then wire brushed out all the rust. Dried the wiring that runs under the carpet down the center line of the van.
My point is this: If a good amount of water has seeped *underneath* your carpet, you're looking at a lot of work to properly fix the problem. In my case, I hadn't noticed any wetness on the carpet for weeks prior to finding the plugged drains in the cowl, yet the carpet pad was still soaked all the way back to the middle row seats.
Obviously, if your source of water is coming from the top, perhaps you have a lot less to worry about. Can't comment on that.
FYI: Checking to see if your cowl drains are plugged is very little effort. Just unplug the drain tubes from the left and right side of the engine compartment and jam a screwdriver up into them and see if any water comes out.
Bob Z
11-17-2007, 06:09 PM
In case you're still looking for an answer to this problem, or for others....very often this is caused simply by a blocked water outlet hose from the a/c. I've had this happen simply by a spider building a web inside the hose (usually found behind the firewall reachable from the underside of the car.
When the hose is blocked or even just partially blocked, whereby the condensation rate exceeds the drainage rate, you have water backing up sometimes in the blower motor on the passenger side behind the glove box. On turns, when parked up hill, or whenever the water builds up to the point where it reaches some outlet (usually a vent hose), then it drains, and sometimes in a good quantity, enough to wet your passenger's feet or at least wet the carpet. You will hear the water swishing often if you turn off the radio and fan, and roll up the windows.
In this case, get under the car, find the hose, run a long wire or screwdriver up the hose, and you'll see the water run out (now that it can), and your blower motor and your carpet will dry out.
When the hose is blocked or even just partially blocked, whereby the condensation rate exceeds the drainage rate, you have water backing up sometimes in the blower motor on the passenger side behind the glove box. On turns, when parked up hill, or whenever the water builds up to the point where it reaches some outlet (usually a vent hose), then it drains, and sometimes in a good quantity, enough to wet your passenger's feet or at least wet the carpet. You will hear the water swishing often if you turn off the radio and fan, and roll up the windows.
In this case, get under the car, find the hose, run a long wire or screwdriver up the hose, and you'll see the water run out (now that it can), and your blower motor and your carpet will dry out.
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