Wondering if anyone else has had this problem and identified the fix.

I get water on the floor of the rear passenger seat and to a lesser extent also the floor of the driver side rear seat. This happens only after driving over puddles or other standing water on the roadway. The water first appears where the rear passengers’ feet would be – just under the front seats, near the end of the front seats’ seat rails. Depending on how much water is on the road, the carpet can just get damp or the whole rear floor is soaked and I can get half a gallon of water if it’s really wet out.

It is not coming from door seals or sunroof – the floor is bone dry if it’s raining out but I haven’t yet driven the car.

I have read the other water leak posts and first thought that it might be the commonly reported AC drain hose being clogged (which has happened to my ’92 Integra). I had the dealer check the drain hose when I had the car in for service last week – nothing. Drain hose was clean as a whistle (which incidentally is just aft of the front wheels, slightly off center on the passenger side). It rained the next day after the dealer visit, after it stopped raining, I went out and hit a couple of substantial puddles – wet rear floor.

I’ve been thinking about where the under body is penetrated a couple of places – parking brake cable, brake hydraulic lines, wiring harness for ABS sensors (?). That maybe a rubber gasket at one of these openings has crapped out? I’ve run a sprinkler on the underside and wheel wells, but nothing – maybe sprinkler isn’t hitting the exact right spot or isn’t generating the same water pressure/surge as hitting a large puddle.

I’d like to identify the problem so that the dealer can replicate it; that way it’s likely to get fixed versus me having to make a couple trips back and forth with maybe no resolution. The real kicker is that it’s somewhere under the carpet. With my Integra I’ve had two leaks before (after it was 12+ years old) – sunroof drain hose and rear taillight cluster wiring harness grommet; I just started taking out interior trim and spraying down the car until I found the source. Hard to take out the carpet in this situation.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

hmm. ya, i read those other threads too. i don't have an answer. hopefully others will help.

https://acurazine.com/forums/search.php?searchid=355435

 

Bring it to the dealer, maybe an AC leak.

 

If I remember correctly, I read somewhere the leak was caused by the A/C not draining properly. I'd take it to the dealership.

 

^^ i'm pretty sure he said he checked that already...

i'm with you on maybe a rubber grommet or something in the underbody crapped out... easiest way i could think of checking it... not really easy tho, is pulling up the carpet on the pass side and then putting watter in both of the floor pans on the passenger side and seeing if water is dripping from anywhere underneath the car... :shrugs:

 

99% it has something to do w/ the AC drain, there is a hole/vent under the passenger front seat, which is likely the source of the water on the rear passenger's feet area. maybe water is getting up there, but that's where u should start looking, u can access it by removing the passenger seat.

 

You only had them check your drain hose, make sure they check EVERYTHING! from top to bottom, thats what warranty are for.

 

Definitely agree - most of the time the AC - but don't think so in this case.

Check out location of AC components from the service manual on the following link: AC component location Drain hose is the little pig tail that drops down from the evaporator core through the firewall to the rear of the engine compartment just aft of the front wheels. For the water to get to the back seat - it has to overflow the evaporator core (which did happen in my '92 Integra) - wet the front carpet - and then work its way back to the rear floor. With my current leak, the front floor has always been bone dry.

I'm starting to think about the penetration in the body shell for the transmission/shift lever - which is in about the right place. The other openings that I was thinking about - brake hydralic lines, parking brake cable, ABS wiring harness are probably too small for all the water that I'm getting in. Hopefully I get a chance to jack it up and take a look around in the next couple weeks.

Keep the ideas coming though! Much appreciated!

 

Just weighing in that I have noticed the same problem but have as yet not figured out the cause as well. It does not seem to be from the door seals but I may be wrong. Anectdotally, most recently after a day of heavy rain with my car parked facing up an incline I noticed the wet rear passenger floor area. I was thinking it might be coming from the underbody somewhere as water is running down from the front to the back and sneaking in somewhere....haven't looked underneath the car so I have no idea where it would enter.

 

Well, after noodling on this for some time, finally figured out where the water is coming from. Actually hint from frisbeenut and a Goss' Garage segment on Motorweek helped identify it. The Goss' Garage segment focused on finding phantom water leaks in cars: one of the common sources being build-up of dirt/gunk in the weep holes as the bottom of car doors. They made the point that windows (when rolled up) are not water tight. Some water will always get in the window, run down the insides of the doors and then out the weep holes at the bottom of the doors. If these weep holes are clogged with dirt/gunk, the water will back up inside the door and then run out the next available hole... which is usually above the door sill. This leads the the water leaking into the passenger compartment.

This is what is happening in my 2004 TSX. This problem is probably exacerbated when parked on a slope (as frisbeenut mentioned with his TSX). The water tries to run out of a couple of the weep holes instead of all of them.

The solution on Goss' Garage was to clean these holes out. Unfortunately did not work for me. Cut down a zip-strip and used it to push and pull potential debris out. Nada.

I was able to confirm the leak location with a non-traditional approach. Baby diapers. For those of you who aren't parents (which was me until 18 months ago), baby diaper technology is incredible at sucking up any available moisture. In search of the leak I stuffed 16 baby diapers underneath my floor mats in every corner of each floor mat. With a heavy rain, the driver and front passenger rear outboard side diapers got wet (closest to the B-pillars). All other 14 diapers were dry. A little more fine tuning with the diaper placement suggests the overflow of the weep holes at the trailing end of the front doors.

Since my weep holes are clean... no way to address this problem. Basicallly a design flaw - somehow the structure and component locations inside the door leads more water to the trailing end of the front doors. I've taken to leaving a diaper at the B-pillars all the time. They suck up an incredible amount of water - and after a heavy rain, I just toss them out and replace with new. This has been very effective in keeping the rest of the carpet dry.

 

interesting.

did you test the weep holes by pouring water inside the door panel, to see if the weep holes were working? i didn't get that in your post.

 

The drain holes in the bottom of the door frames are outside of the seal, so water coming out of them can't make it into the car. More than likely, the plastic water barrier behind the door trim panel is either torn or not fully adhered along the bottom, which can/will allow water into the car. That's the first thing I'd check.

 

I too had a leak on the passenger side front and rear floors. I had about 2 inches of water in there! Anyhow after spending a day taking everything apart i could find nothing so i brought it to the dealership and they did all of the "Water Tests" (I assume they just keep running it thru the car wash!) and found a leak in the sunroof drain. They tested and retested it. after 4 days i got it back and everything is fine so far (one week). I tried to get the tech to explain it to me but he decided to take his lunch break right when i went to pick up the car. I know the sunroof drains are located in the trunk so i can only guess that the water found it's way through the rear seat/wheel well. The trunk was dry so i thought that was kind of strange. I will post if problem reappears.

 

I can smell mildew whenever I get in my 04 TSX after it's been raining. I just tested the sunroof drains... the front ones that drain to the front tires, and the front left definitely drained slower than the front right. I used a straw to blow it out, so hopefully that worked.

But... while I was in there, I noticed rust on the inside of the sunroof frame. It corresponds to where standing water would be from poor drainage there.

 

It's been 4 times I've taken my car to the dealer about my "leak."

1. No "proper seals or mechanics" to open the sunroof
2. Realign sunroof and "clear out" the drainage area
3. Replaced the "top door seal"
4. This time the weather guard adhesive around door pannel was coming undone.

Basically he re-sealed the weather guard. I'm not sure if this will solve but this little sorry leak that's happening from the driver's door and back toward the rear better stop or....

 

Bump, having the same issue as OP w/ my car. This is the first Honda product that has made me think about jumping to Lexus. I can't keep the car outside in the rain because the pass side rear floor fills up like a fishbowl and to a lesser extent the drivers side rear floor.

The real depressing part is I'm not the only one

 

Check the inner door membrane, the silicon sealent comes appart and would cause the water to flow into cabin, more so if your parked up or downwards, also check your door drains.

 

I'll be taking it apart tomorrow, hopefully I can get this resolved, although the carpet is most likely toast

It's just weird that BOTH front doors would fail on this car. I'm beyond pissed at Honda on this one, but after doing hours of research on Lexus IS's, I can't switch to a tonka toy shifter

 

Re-sealing the weather strip is not easy. You need to remove all the old gunk off first then re-apply new sealant.
I find using duct tape the best method.
My point being, check to see if their re-sealing of vapor barrier is done correctly.

 

This issue from research occured often on the RSX. You need to remove the rubber seal, scrape the unsound paint then clean and apply some Por15. Once dry replace rubber gasket.
Least this fix wont cause the rust to further.