water entering cabin - through firewall?

[mshinrockford]

After a heavy rain the other day, I had standing water in my front (and rear) footwell. After drying the carpets using towles and a portable heater, I'm tryiung to figure out where/how so much water could have entered the cabin (yes, the windows and sunroof were completely closed). I've read that some drain tubes can become clogged, but the only drain tubes that I found (at the base of the windshiled) were completely clear and open. The entry point appears to have been near (or above) the pedal area. Does this make sense to you? Any suggestions or ideas?

[madorion]

Hi,
Same problem, just found water in mine too. Fortunately I had a t-shirt
sitting on my passenger seat and it was soaked! The only way it's going
to get up there is through the sunroof! SO, one of my jobs tomorrow is to find out why it's leaking! I believe the front vent inlets can get plugged too.
If your front and back pans were soaked, I'd check the sunroof.

[Maxbaby]

Couple of things

Are you sure it's just water and not coolant? The heater cores on these cars are not the best and leaking into the footwells is a sign that the core needs to be replaced (there's a writeup in the database and it's not that hard). If your coolant level is good, disregard this.

Have you examined your sunroof glass, specifically around the edge for the rubber seal? This can rust out, and if your sunroof tracks are not functioning properly (ie: the sunroof doesn't return into a fully closed position making a seal between the gasket and roof) you may be getting water there.

Also, do you have a cabin air filter installed? If not, or if it has been forgotten about and deteriorated, you may get water through there, but I'd expect that only if there'd been a torrential downpour.

This is unlikely because you'd probably notice it, but have a real good look at the seals around the doors and the windows to make sure they haven't torn or pulled loose. You can easily lift the windshield trim upand away to inspect the gasket as well, but maybe try running a water hose over the roof of the car, windshield and doors to see if you can see anything.

Recheck those drain hoses from the sunroof.

[kelvin6]

Another possibility is water entering through the blower fan. I've had a situation where (this left 1-2 inches of standing water in the passenger well) water was trickling through the front cowl making its way to the cabin air filter (which i found wet), and dripped water down to the blower motor and happened to seep out of the unit and into the passenger footwell.

I made the conclusion after finding water trails/marks/spots on the bottom of the blower motor cover.

It was not my sunroof drains, which I found wasn't clogged up. This problem occured when i parked my car on a hill with the front facing down hill. This caused the water to pool up in the cowl area...