E30 Zone

hi i have a 2.5 four door and there seems to be water pooling in the passenger footwell, its only a patch about the size of my hand on the carpet that is wet. i have cleaned the elephants trunk out inside the engine bay but water is still gettin in somehow , any ideas

Rot in the bulkhead?
Rot in the wheelarch/floor?
Leaky heater valve?

i had something simular to this. water gets in under the fuse box. remove the carpet and the glove box and get a touch up there. if this is the same problem as i had it will be clear how and where the water is getting in. hope this points you in the right direction

daimlerman wrote:Rot in the bulkhead?
Rot in the wheelarch/floor?
Leaky heater valve?

the wet patch does feel a bit greasy I thought it might have just been some old carpet shampoo mixing with the water. do you reckon this could be the heater valve.

^^^^^^^^^^ i had the same problem as e30aza....dunno how it was gettin in there but it was! i siliconed everything in the area just to make sure!

the water was getting in from the gromet from the fuse box loom. i ended up stripping the interior out, cutting out the rust and welding a new patch in. loads of zinc primer and por15 and have never had a drip since and that was a couple of years ago now

mine wasnt that bad...must have got to it in time!

If it is coolant , then it would be the heater core matrix/tubing.
If it is plain water, check to see if the door has a plastic vapour barrier, under the door card.

m

got a feeling it might be coolant. is it a easy job inspecting the matrix and tubing.

Have the same trouble with mine, though i defo have a hole in the bulkhead!! Worth having a look at some of the other threads on wet footwells as, having looked under the carpet in mine, the backing to the carpet is thick foam and can literally hold gallons of water - the small patch you can see is likely only the tip of the iceberg!!!!

The advice seems to be to get the carpet out (which i am going to do tomorrow) as it's the only way to dry it properly. At least then you can inspect the bulkhead and the heater to be sure. The last thing you want is to do it twice....or more!! You can give the carpet a good clean in the process too.

mat_patsy wrote:Have the same trouble with mine, though i defo have a hole in the bulkhead!! Worth having a look at some of the other threads on wet footwells as, having looked under the carpet in mine, the backing to the carpet is thick foam and can literally hold gallons of water - the small patch you can see is likely only the tip of the iceberg!!!!

The advice seems to be to get the carpet out (which i am going to do tomorrow) as it's the only way to dry it properly. At least then you can inspect the bulkhead and the heater to be sure. The last thing you want is to do it twice....or more!! You can give the carpet a good clean in the process too.

sound advice

Carpet came out last night - took an hour and a half, bit of sweat and a few profanities!!!

At least i can no see the area in question properly, can work on it and deal with a little rust that has manifested itself on the floorplan as a result of the water in the carpet backing. Well worth doing in hindsight.

spinner100 wrote:got a feeling it might be coolant. is it a easy job inspecting the matrix and tubing.

It's fairly easy to do but you'll need to remove the centre consol and various other bits to get at it.

I'm in the process of doing mine whilst taking a few pictures so I'll post em up once I'm done if you think it'll be useful for you?

The key bit is having the bottle to cut out around the heater - the centre console should have left a mark on the carpet which will guide you where to cut it so that the cut is not visible once the centre console goes back in.

Banjo1981 wrote:

spinner100 wrote:got a feeling it might be coolant. is it a easy job inspecting the matrix and tubing.

It's fairly easy to do but you'll need to remove the centre consol and various other bits to get at it.

I'm in the process of doing mine whilst taking a few pictures so I'll post em up once I'm done if you think it'll be useful for you?

yeah that would be very helpful< am going to take the carpet up at the weekend just to see if there is any immiedate signs that might be visable, it does sound like quite a job is it common for them to leak like that........

defo antifreeze.