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Water in passenger footwell

My 2000 Clio has been pooling water in the passenger foot well. Window and door were closed before you ask.The water is sitting in the passenger foot well but in the corner closest to the driver. I read that it could be to do with the sunroof, but I've run water down it and it seems to be running off completely fine. I have removed leafs from drains too. I have no idea what it could be. Please help!

I have been drying the car but it seems pointless because its just going to rain again soon. I have pulled the carpet up a bit, but it's held down a lot.

Please be clear in your answers since I'm not very good with cars. Cheers!

Reply 1

Nuffles

Is there a sickly sweet smell in the car? If you dip your fingers in the water and then rub them together are they sticky or tacky? If there's no water leaking into the car then it may be that your heater matrix has failed and is dumping cooling fluid into the footwell. The best way to trace a leak is to completely dry it out, and then lay some paper down in the footwell and get a friend to use a pressure washer to spray all over the sunroof, door, and bonnet of the car and sit inside and see where the water is coming from, and then trace it back up to where it's coming in. Then from there you can work out how to seal the leak.

Reply 2

crashpepperoni

Nope, it's not sickly or sweet. I'm sure its plain old water because these pools appear after heavy rain. The rest of the car is bone dry except the passenger foot well.

I'm going to try your method of spraying water on the car.

Reply 3

IntriguedUser

This is a VERY common problem with Corsa C's...

I know you drive a Clio, but some of the reasons were:

Door seals not sealed properly
Heater Matrix
Brake Servo (MOST COMMON)

Check some Clio forums :smile:

Reply 4

crashpepperoni

I've been on some clio forums but a lot of the info was contradicting. I don't think it's the door seal, because the immediate area around the door is dry but the corner furthest away from the door gets wet.

What is a heater matrix and a brake servo? I recently had my MOT done and it passed, so I'm not sure why they didn't notice a problem.

Reply 5

Nuffles

Original post by crashpepperoni

I can't see it being a brake servo problem honestly, the brakes use brake fluid not water and you'd know about that if you had it in your footwell (symptoms like melted carpets and the like, brake fluid is used to strip paint :wink:

). The heater matrix is what I mentioned earlier. It takes hot coolant from the engine and passes it through a mini radiator, through which air is blown by the interior fan. It heats the air, and this is how you get hot air out your vents. These matrixes are located under the dashboard in roughly the middle, and when they fail they dump coolant into the footwell. This is why I asked you if it smelled sweet or was sticky, although if you've not got a lot of anti freeze in the coolant (you should, it being winter) then it'll appear more like water.

All the MOT does is test the safety and road worthiness of the car, not whether the doors leak or the seats of comfortable or the heater's working :tongue:

Reply 6

JC.

Best guess is a blocked up vent drain or damaged or missing grommet in the bulkhead.

The only way to test is to get your head under there whilst someone soaks the car with a hose and try to see where it's dripping from.

Reply 7

You Fat Bitch

Original post by crashpepperoni

If you have water in your footwell your head gasket may well have warped, I suggest a compression test leakiness

Reply 8

JC.

Original post by You Fat Bitch

If you have water in your footwell your head gasket may well have warped, I suggest a compression test leakiness

Nonsense.

Reply 9

Pegasus2

Check all the drain channels and gutters around the bottom of the windscreen. On some cars this means removing the slam panel (black bit at the bottom of the windscreen)