2003 Cayenne Turbo wet carpets/bad condensation

[chrispiec]

Hi Guys,

I drive a UK spec cayenne and for the last month or so i have

noticed that my drivers side front, passenger side front and drivers side rear

passenger carpets are wet and cannot find fault. Have check AC drain and this is

clear, plus im not using the AC anyway as its so cold on Scotland. Ive also

unblocked and actually removed the 2 rubber drains behind the wheel liner. They

were badly blocked and a lot of water came out. Well that was a week ago and

still the carpets are wet and dont seems to be drying. Ive had a fan heater in

the car to help dry it out.

Ive checked the sunroof drains and they are

flowing fine. What else can i check? Also if i solved the problem last week by

removing the rubber drains how long would it take to dry out? The carpets are

saturated particularly the drivers side rear passenger.

Any help

appreciated. Weather is really wet and want to get to the bottom before

electrics get damaged or rusting

Chris

[wvicary]

The carpets can hold an amazing amount of water. I've used a wet/dry shop vacuum and lifted the carpet to get air circulating bottom to top and it still took days to dry out.

[chrispiec]

would a dehumidifier help? If i had another car i would lift carpets to dry etc but need the car everyday for work etc

[deilenberger]

Under the carpets is about 1.5" of foam rubber. Really. And it holds water like crazy. I finally dried mine out (had a sunroof leak) by squeezing it to get the water out, using a big towel to soak up the water, then propping it up from under the foam rubber (and pulling the carpet up enough to get clearance) and heating the area with a heat gun. It took the best part of an afternoon to get just the passenger (starboard) side dried out (that would be your drivers side.) The leak I had was caused by the front sunroof drain being plugged up. Water would build up there until it went over the lip, then tracked around behind the A pillar trim, through the fusebox, down behind the side kick panel and into the foot-well.

A suggestion to avoid this sort of flood again - there are plastic plugs in the floor pan. They are solid so no water will come in if you're fording rivers. Since I rarely ford rivers - I took one and using a sharp razor knife, cut a cross in one of them, allowing for water to exit if any got in.

Just checked my foot-wells yesterday (seemed to be getting more fogging then normal on startup) - and all are dry. Lifted the rear floor to check the spare tire well (where the woofer lives), and found the jack and spare tire rim were "sweating" a bit. So in a panic, I took everything out of the rear compartment, including the woofer housing. Dry as a bone. Dusty even. I have no idea why these two bits were sweating, but I dried them off and put it all back together. Will be checking it again sometime soon.. The drain hoses for the rear sunroof drains have been known to get disconnected, and fill up the spare tire well like a fishbowl (doing in the horribly expensive woofer/amp assembly.) There are plastic plugs in that area also, I think one of them is going to be sacrificed.

Edited February 17, 2013 by deilenberger