A couple of oddities in my '95

[geno4952]

First of all I have a leak in the trunk. Seems to leak in the corners. After the 4" of rain we had last week I had about 1/4" of standing water in the front and rear passenger side floor areas. Any help on this would be appreciated.
The other weird thing happened this morning. I opened my drivers door, sat down, put the key in, turned the key to the on position and my passenger side airbag went off. You haven't been shocked until this happens to you. Sounds like an m-80 went off inside the car. Shattered the windshield and broke part of the dash as well. Has anyone out there ever heard of this happening? I'm a bit scared to get behind the wheel after it is fixed. I am thinking of disabling the airbag system altogether. What do you all think?

[randman1]

I'm very glad that it was your passenger side airbag rather than the drivers side (providing you did not have a passenger). You must have had to go back inside and change your shorts.

I have heard of the airbag deployment you described only once. It was blamed on a corroded airbag module under one of the front seats. I have a 93 and have no modules on the floor under either seat but this seems to have changed between 95 or 96. I'm not sure on the year. Your leak might not be only in the trunk.

When I bought my car, it smelled like it was parked in a swamp for months. VERY musty and there was mold on the carpet. I removed everything in the interior and found that the padding under the carpet was so saturated that it could no longer soak up any water. There was plenty of standing water in the low spots of the floorboards.

I would pull the front seats to see what if any modules live under there. This will also give you an oppertunity to pull the carpet back to inspect how much water may be under there. Your trunk leak might be a poorly sealed window gasket. A light bead of clear silicone usually fixes that. If there is a lot of water in the passenger cabin, I suspect door seals. I have come up with a pretty good and enexpensive way of fixing the water leak in mine.

Check it out and let us know what you find.

[FierceGT]

The door seals in mine appear to have shrunk over time and in the process have pulled away from the corners....i suspect this to have been the source of my leak. I had about 4 inches of standing water in the spare tire well and about an inch in the rear floor. It seems to be better now, all I did was pull the seal back up to cover the corners. This left about an inch gap at the bottom, but i don't think that area is as crucial as the upper corners.

[harry123]

If you have a sunroof, you might want to clean out the drain tubes.
You can see the front ones when the roof is open. I have yet to get to the rear ones - if there are any.
I've seen water trickle down the rear passenger compartment and soak the area under the seats as well as the rear carpet.

[MagicRat]

I would also suggest (if you are in the US) contacting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They are the governing body for auto safety and might be able to help in providing information.
This is a serious safety flaw and, if its a design defect, the manufacturer should pay for the repair.
Also try contacting Public Citizen (the lobby group)

[movintons]

Originally Posted by geno4952

First of all I have a leak in the trunk.

Geno,

I tackled this problem several months ago. At first I thought the spare tire well was holding water spilled from a cooler since the design of the trunk should not allow water to leak in. I wet vac'ed the water out only to have it re-appear
It turned out that the water was leaking down the drain rail and entering around the tail light assembly. The post on the assembly were broke from dropping weight (probably the cooler) on it. I removed the assembly and glued the posts back in place with Goop, let it set 72 hours and re-assembled. Problem Fixed!!!

Hope this helps,
Rob