3rd Seat Well Full of Water

[caroma]

So I went to install a volt meter for my second battery a few days ago and upon opening up the lid to my third seat well (where battery is kept) I found it to have a layer of water basically covering the base of the entire well. Maybe 3-4ml worth deep.

Has anyone come across this before. We had a heap of rain last Tuesday but I can't work out how the water got in there, other than the door seal is f'ed and it somehow channelled all into the well?! No wet carpet or anything.

Checked all the grommets that are in the well but them not making a seal doesn't make sense to let that much water in.

[caroma]

To add: it poured down again yesterday morning, and I didn't get a chance to check the car until this morning and it was wet again. Not quite as much this time but still a lot.

Anybody had to replace their boot door seal due to water leaks before??

[grhyso]

This sounds pretty bizarre. Was the car parked in the rain or driven on wet roads? Maybe the sealant around where the well is welded in may be leaking but it seems like a lot of water doesn't it.

[Silver Streak]

With a name of caroma, you'd be used of water around the place??
Maybe dry out the seat-well, and get your hose around the the rear door seal and maybe squirt the hose in and around underneath, then check for any moisture again. It does seen very strange, especially if the rear carpet wasn't wet at all?? Which suggests it wasn't coming through the rear seal?
What about dust?? If water is getting in somehow, you'd be getting an abundance of red dust in there, especially where you come from?? Good luck!!

[caroma]

Car was sitting out in the open during the rain.

Yeah I used 'caroma' as my screen name back in the mIRC days and it kinda stuck haha.

As simple as the hose idea sounds, I didn't think of that...
Will try this arvo and see how it goes.

Cheers.

[caroma]

Ok so I set the hose nozzle to spray like rain and aimed it at the back of the car for roughly 5 minutes.
I then let it sit for another 5 minutes.
When I opened the door and checked the well there was a small pool of water already developed in one corner. Checking the wall of the well I could see it indeed came from that corner and I traced it up to see that the water was travelling down under the seal from somewhere a bit higher.

When I looked at the seal at the top right hand corner I found it had slightly pulled away from the metal of the car and had developed a 1mm gap.
I can only assume the water from the roof channels was draining to this point, and then entering under this seal where it travelled to the bottom of the door frame and then into the well.

Anyways here's some pics to help explain (I hope)





When I'm in Perth next I'll have the seal replaced properly but for now I used some silicon sealant over the gap.

On the plus side I found that the guys who installed my tow bar didn't put the back RHS trim back in properly . May have contributed to the leak but I dunno...

[Robert62]

Hi,

I had water in the well under the third seat, no wet carpet etc. Mechanic found that one of the rubber seals around a third seat window was leaking. Just get a hose and pour water around the top of one window - if there's no water in the well, try the other window. I had to wait a few weeks for a new rubber seal to come from Japan. $500 installed thank you very much. Now I never open them at all!

[Mik]

Did you fix the leak? After the rains we had here a few days ago I found my 3rd row bay full of water too. Lucky there was nothing in there but I had to remove the plastic and rip off the underlay as it was water damaged.
I'll have a guess that it was the seal and will have to have a look where exactly it failed.

Mik

[DJD]

I also have just discovered my NS 2008 has a 3rd footwell with water in it.
I thought it must have been from river crossings a few months back, but we often get very heavy rain, so i will be checking the seals like yourself.
i dont use the rear seats, so they were waterlogged.

[MTN-KAT]

That's the result of removing gutters from roof design. I have had my NL out for a week in a cyclone and got 10 inches of rain in one day and still never leaked. Hard to let go of good design. Cheers.

[caroma]

Did you fix the leak? After the rains we had here a few days ago I found my 3rd row bay full of water too. Lucky there was nothing in there but I had to remove the plastic and rip off the underlay as it was water damaged.
I'll have a guess that it was the seal and will have to have a look where exactly it failed.

Mik

I also have just discovered my NS 2008 has a 3rd footwell with water in it.
I thought it must have been from river crossings a few months back, but we often get very heavy rain, so i will be checking the seals like yourself.
i dont use the rear seats, so they were waterlogged.

i applied some silicon sealant to that gap behind the seal you can see in my above photos. havent had any leaks since. smashed it with the hose for a good amount of time and no water in well.

[markpeh]

Had this problem in my old commodore. Fixed it by drilling a couple of 10mm holes in the floor...