Water leak - Under floor mats - Mysterious

[littlefrog]

Hi Everyone - I have an 03 P5 - awesome car!

About 6 months ago, I noticed that the floor mat under on the front driver's side was wet - so much that it was also wet under the rear mat as well. It wasn't just damp, but drenched. I had to bring the P5 in for an oil change and the garage (mazda) said that it was the sun roof drain that was plugged up. I looked all over and couldn't find what he was talking about.

That seemed to take care of the problem - I recently drove the car (don't get it drive it as much now that my wife has picked up driving a standard) - and before I got into the car, there was frost on the inside of the windshield. Well, I quickly found out that this is caused by the water under the floor mats.

This time, both the driver's side and the passenger's side are damp. Granted I live in the NE - so w/ the cold weather you don't notice the water as much except for the frost the windshield.

I looked under the passengers dash and there doesn't seem to be any water marks coming from the blower or any clogged vents. Nothing in the tire well either.


Anyone know where the sun roof drain plugs are located?

Any other suggestions ?

Thanks!

 

[Purrfectangel]

There are four drains, two in the front and two in the back steming from each corner of the sunroof. The front one's should come down through the front part of the door frame along the windshield and the bottom should be just on the inside of the front of your front door frame behind the wheel well. The back drains start back further because the window retracts and should come down the back door frame closest to the handle on the door and come out just in front of your rear wheel well. They are just plastic tubes, so try running a snake through them or a flexable piece of wire with a rubber end or use and air compresser and blow air through. The water likely just froze in there.

Hope this helps.

 

[littlefrog]

Awesome - Thanks for all of the details - I'll give this a try!

 

[maxchao]

Just to give you some information, my gf's '00 LX has a puddle under front passenger seat, only, but like you said it's totally drenched if i or she don't take care of it. She doesn't have a sunroof.
In the end we found out it's the a/c evaporator drain tube that's plugged. I don't know how to replace it and haven't either. But a quick way to tell whether it's the sunroof or the a/c evaporator is that turn the a/c on on a humid day(like "after" the rain, but not raining) and see if water will pile.
Well, I would say most likely it's the sunroof but just in case it is not.


Josh

 

[maxchao]

By the way, I know it's winter so no one would have their a/c on, but...just in case you haven't done the de-auto defrost mode and drive with vent position on windshield or feet.

Josh

 

[aMaff]

Is it water or coolant?

 

[cpolly69]

I read through this and the other 3-4 threads on this subject and I just wanted to post up what my experience was - I had the never ending puddle on the drivers side floor board only -
I really hoped it was just the sunroof drain - checked them all and they work like a champ
So I moved on to the cowl area - after I got the cover off and did a whole lot of digging and pulling out brackets/electronics and cutting the rubber matting/insulation under the dash/pedals area I finally got high enough in there to discover this:

having just bought the car used - I wasn't too happy but it's an Ohio car and you get what you get for high miles
I scraped out the majority of the rust, put some rust inhibitor on it, dried it, covered both sides w/ silicone, pushed a piece of rubber in the actual hole and sprayed the top with 3m rubberized undercoating - I'm pretty confident water isn't going to come in any more