Regis Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 Tonight I noticed that my rear seat and trunk were wet with water but only on the driver's side. The seat is pretty well soaked and growing a little mildew in places. The trunk is wet but only on top and in the area directly behind the rear seat. There is no water is the spare tire well. Also the back of the rear seat (lower portion) as well the arm rest is wet. Like i said, both the rear seat, rear seat back, and trunk are wet and only on the driver's side. I can't seem to locate any leaks. The head liner and rear pillars are bone dry and no stains. About 2 days ago i when to one of those 25 cent car washes to rinse the salt off and spent most of the time rinsing the under body......... on the driver's side. My question is: Is there an opening in the under body in the effected area that water, under pressure, could reach the inside cab area??? I rinse the driver's side a lot to keep the fuel line, brake lines, parking brake cables clean. I've had this water problem before but i can't seem to recall if it happens after rinsing in that area. Any help and insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks. -kg "Burns" rubber " I've never considered myself to be all that conservative, but it seems the more liberal some people get the more conservative I become. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regis Posted January 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 Sunroof??? Sunroof drain on that side??? Wouldn't the headliner or the pillar cover on that side get wet? I thought about the sunroof drain but it doesn't explain how the arm rest is getting so wet in the up (folded) position and not the immediate surrounding back area of the seat. I'm stumped. "Burns" rubber " I've never considered myself to be all that conservative, but it seems the more liberal some people get the more conservative I become. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
an01sts Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 As a former automotive technician--addressing windniose and waterleaks, and trained in Windnoise and Waterleaks, GM Technical Schoo, Garland, TX--I have found that water leaks can come from many places. The first step in repairing water leaks is to determine where it comes from. (None of the leak jobs I pulled had leaking sunroofs. Then again, most leak jobs were hard-collision-repair jobs, faulty workdone by less-then qualified people, and problem leaks that on one else could locate. In other words, the sunroof jobs, whatever their ratios, may have been weeded out by other technicians.) Make life easy on yourself and don't waste time with hit-or-miss guesses: If the sunroof is suspect, eliminate it as a cause. With the sunroof closed, tape the are between the sunroof and body with duct tape. Water test the vehicle. If it doesn't leak when it's taped closed, the sunroof is leaking. If it leaks with the sunroof taped shut, move on to something else. Whenever I did a water test, I'd have the sunroof taped shut. But I got paid for completed work, not sitting there collecting money when no work was completed, so I had to work efficiently, trying to make multiple diganisises in single steps. Tape it shut, water test, and if it still leaks, make a new post, and we'll take it from there. Rather than posting over and over from a blank slate, I'll sit down and write an extensive work that covers every aspect on locating water leaks. That way, I can simply copy and paste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regis Posted January 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 15, 2005 No, not necessarily. If a sunroof drain is plugged or disconnected in the middle of the A pillar or the sail panel then the water could leak out there and find all sorts of paths to follow. If you have a sunroof and there is a cabin water leak you have about a 99% chance that it is a sunroof drain in my experience.... Pull the trunk liners back at the deck lid hinge area and you can see the plastic drain up in the sail panel. Water could easily leak into that area, follow some structure in the seat back area and run anywhere into the passenge compartment. Ok here's the update and I would have posted it yesterday but our cable was out for the day. That's another story. Getting back to water problem. Bbobynski, I guess that 99% is still holding strong. The water was running along the edges of the headliner and then down in the strangest places which explains how the arm rest got wet as well as the seat, seat back, and the trunk. The culprit turned out to be the exit end of the drain hose. The little extension hose that's visible from under the car fell off from the nipple piece which connects it to the larger main drain hose. When the extension fell off it caused the nipple part to clamp down, not allowing water to exit properly. It was an excellent trap for dirt and debris to collect on which further added to the "dam" effect. When I squeezed the nipple mud, little stones, and sludge came glopping out followed by a nice stream of water. Viola! I pulled away the trunk side curtain like Guru suggested and the other side as well for reference. I easily located the black rubber drain lines (squeeze test worked for me). At the base where the drain line exits through the trunk, it is held in place by a rubber gasket/ stopper/washer thing. I grabbed ahold of the stopper and wiggled and then pulled it out exposing the nipple minus the extension piece. After I cleared the line I added a new extension piece from some rubber hosing I had. The rear seat took a real beating getting that wet. Don't think it could've stood another soaking. Thanks again for the help. -kg ps. Thanks also goes out to Scotty for IMing me the link to Davedog's water leak post. http://caddyinfo.ipbhost.com/index.php?sho...4087&hl=sunroof "Burns" rubber " I've never considered myself to be all that conservative, but it seems the more liberal some people get the more conservative I become. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
an01sts Posted January 16, 2005 Report Share Posted January 16, 2005 I'm glad you found the leak. When you start adding headliner, armrests, and seats as additional wet areas, it changes the plan of attack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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