307 SW Wet Wet Wet

[alexp-j]

2004 307 SW with a solid glass roof.
Been noticing a dampness recently, however it really became apparent after a jetwash - though that may or may not be coincidence.

I have removed all the carpets I can, and all the sound padding I can as it was Wet in the front & rear footwells. Some spongy sound damping in front the footwells running up the bulkhead cannot be removed easily and is quite wet. Headlining and door pillars are dry.

Got a dehumidifier running in the car over the weekend.

The heater matrix unit and coolant pipes is dry, and there is no sign of coolant or smell (other than damp) which makes me think not the matrix.

Windscreen scuttle not sealed? or some drain holes blocked causing water to come in?

If the seal around the wondscreen or glass roof had failed where would the water run?

I suspect the winscreen has been changed at some point as well.

Any ideas on any of this would be welcome.

[colinxm]

Hi Alex, my wife runs exactly the same car of the same age as you and had the same problem as you but only on one side of the car (uk drivers side). The problem was with the seam/join between the bulkhead and floor section panels. These are sealed with mastic but on our car this mastic was very thin and poorly applied. I think that the years of people's feet in the footwell had worn this out directly over a certain slightly raised section and staining from the water coming in was evident.
I removed all trim holding down the carpet, the glove box (Lhd car) and the front seat to be able to lift the carpet on that side. I used a stanley knife to cut out the rubber backed foam insulation as high above the wetness as possible and allowed these to dry out in the warm, the "felt" soundproofing I threw away after using as templates to make new insulation from some propriatary sheets of replacement soundproofing (try Halfords - available in different thicknesses), I had to do this as the old material really stunk the car out. I then used some "body shut" paste to re-make the seal along the whole lenghth of the seam, the foam insulation can then be put back in and held in place with a little duct tape before replacing the dried out carpet.
As soon as it stops snowing here I'm going to do the same to the other side and then plaster the underside of both wheelarches in thick,claggy rustproofing goo as there's almost certainly little or none there at the moment to stop the water getting through in the first place...

Good luck, Colin.P

[alexp-j]

I am planning to look into it properly to find the source tomorrow....
As long as it's not raining.

[colinxm]

Hi Alex, any joy ?

Colin.P