Water in footwell behind driver's seat

[orange260z]

Hi all,

As some of you may have read I just bought my '01 Box in Dallas last week and drove it back to Canada. The first night I had the car, in Tennessee, there was a torrential downpour and I found a the carpet behind/beneath the driver's seat was soaked. I dried the area up as best as I could, and since then the weather has been drier.

When I got home, I popped the top halfway and checked the two drain holes in the plastic tray beneath the top, and did manage to blow some dried leaf bits out of the drains with some compressed air. I poured some water down each, and they seemed to flow pretty good, so I figured it should be the end of my problem.

Well, today I drove in the rain and found the carpet wet again. Any thoughts on next steps to trace down this leak? Are there any other common leak causes? I think I have found what might be a tear/abrasion in the styrofoam tub - is there a best way to patch it? BTW, I have searched the forums under "water" and "leak" and read the article on Dieter's webpage.

Thanks in advance for any advice,

AG

Ottawa, Canada

2001 Boxster Tip

[akpud]

Hi all,

As some of you may have read I just bought my '01 Box in Dallas last week and drove it back to Canada. The first night I had the car, in Tennessee, there was a torrential downpour and I found a the carpet behind/beneath the driver's seat was soaked. I dried the area up as best as I could, and since then the weather has been drier.

When I got home, I popped the top halfway and checked the two drain holes in the plastic tray beneath the top, and did manage to blow some dried leaf bits out of the drains with some compressed air. I poured some water down each, and they seemed to flow pretty good, so I figured it should be the end of my problem.

Well, today I drove in the rain and found the carpet wet again. Any thoughts on next steps to trace down this leak? Are there any other common leak causes? I think I have found what might be a tear/abrasion in the styrofoam tub - is there a best way to patch it? BTW, I have searched the forums under "water" and "leak" and read the article on Dieter's webpage.

Thanks in advance for any advice,

AG

Ottawa, Canada

2001 Boxster Tip

Been there - done that! Whatever you do, find that leak FAST or face what I did - replace alarm system (because it's under the seat, replace the door locks, etc etc - it's a bad one and it gets mighty expensive!

Good luck!

akpud

[orange260z]

Been there - done that! Whatever you do, find that leak FAST or face what I did - replace alarm system (because it's under the seat, replace the door locks, etc etc - it's a bad one and it gets mighty expensive!

Good luck!

akpud

akpud, what exactly was the source of your leak? how did you trace it? what was the repair? any details would be great....

thanks,

AG

[Paul Fraser]

Have a feel at the bottom of the door next time it happens. If this is wet it is a door membrane problem -- I've had a couple, and, obviously, if your car is parked on a slope the water will pool at one end or the other, if it finds its way into the car (which is a lateral slope function).

[akpud]

Been there - done that! Whatever you do, find that leak FAST or face what I did - replace alarm system (because it's under the seat, replace the door locks, etc etc - it's a bad one and it gets mighty expensive!

Good luck!

akpud

akpud, what exactly was the source of your leak? how did you trace it? what was the repair? any details would be great....

thanks,

AG

Its a long story.................Was sitting having coffee and looking at the car during a vicious rainstorm last July. Got back into the car after it stopped raining and when we backed up I could actually hear water sloshing - no good! I looked in the trunk, in the well behind the ragtop - but nothing. The sloshing disappeared within a few hours.

A few days later I came out to the car and it started beeping at me (as the Alarm module was getting soaked to its limit of tolerance, I guess), the trunk started to pop open on its own and the windows started to open and close all by themselves. The car was possesed!

Had it towed to the dealer where they diagnosed a blocked drain tube (before this I never knew the **** things exisited) which had backed up and flooded the alarm compartment under the seat. Apparently the drain tube was blocked with leaf debris and such.

Had to replace:

- Alarm Unit

- Both door locking mechanisms

- Gas Cap locking mechanism

The work the repair shop did on the car also broke the Side mirror mechanism (which I had to fix) and the wiring harness for the seatbelt (which they fixed) but now.....guess what - the airbag light is on and no amount of cancelling the code will turn it off.

Also had to send the car from the repair shop to a Porsche dealer to 'marry' the new Alarm Unit to the car and the new key. The back to the Porsche dealer because they forgot to code the key to open the trunk.

The happy news was that it was all covered by insurance to the tune of around $6000 CDN. :D

I hope you caught the leak before it got to the alarm unit!!!

Bottom line - I still love the car - but I'm scared of those drain tubes!

Good luck - if you need any more details, let me know.

akpud

[orange260z]

Thanks Akpud, sorry to hear about all the trouble you had to go through. I sealed a small tear in the drain pan on the driver's side, blew out the drain tubes, and all seems to be fine.

Thanks for your experiences, it definitely will make me regularly check and clean my drain tubes!

[akpud]

No Sweat - glad I could help. I regularily check those drain tubes now!

ak