At some point in the last month, the nearside footwells (both front and rear) in my car got wet. I don't know how, but I suspect that the windows or doors weren't closed properly during a rainstorm.

I'll be taking the car to a local carwash shortly to check the seals, etc.

That isn't my problem. My problem is that I want some tips for drying out the carpet. It's quite cold at the moment, so it's unlikely to dry out by itself (and the passenger footwell is showing signs of mould).

I spent some time with some towels (paper and cloth) attempting to get the carpet dry, and I think I've got up the worst of it, even though it seems that the floor in the Focus is a bit ridged under the carpet: pushing on the carpet causes more water to come up from underneath.

So, I'm wondering: how best to completely dry it out? Should I empty a bag of silica gel beads onto it? Where could I get a big enough bag of them from anyway? A hairdryer didn't seem to make any impression. Any other ideas?

A small, portable electric heater (set on "low") might do it.

Here in Canada, our car carpets get wet from snow/ice on boots, and stay that way until it thaws out in the spring. Or on a longish car trip the in-car heater/blower may also dry them out a little.

There should not be water puddling under the carpet -- there are supposed to be drain holes under there. Perhaps they're clogged?

EDIT: A wet/dry "shop vac" could be used to suck the loose water out of it.


Cheers

When my smart flooded they ripped out the entire interior, a little harsh I know. I've also heard of people using heaters and dehumidifiers to do the job.

The interior of my MX-5 has got damp and mildewed a few times now. I have some success with putting a dehumidifier on the front seat for a couple of days.

The best way I have found though is to take it for a drive for a couple of hours, the heat soak through from the engine/gearbox does a good job of drying it out. Might not work quite as well on the Focus though (the MX-5 gearbox sits between the footwells).

Go to a DIY center, Homebase definitely stocks it, and buy a couple of large packs of "Chemical Dehumidifier". It's normally near the plumbing supplies. The stuff is, from memory, calcium chloride, and is EXTREMELY hygroscopic. It will suck water out of the air like a sucking thing set on maximum suck.

Open the packs, assemble them into their little plastic containers, and then put them into a large plastic bucket on the back seat on in the footwell. DON'T forget the bucket, or you'll have CaCl solution everywhere.

It's non-toxic, but I wouldn't spill it. If the water is a nuisance, the solution is worse.

It'll dry everything out quite fast. You may need several packs, but it's cheap.

pca

Hopefully it's not really calcium chloride, or, as we call it here, road salt. That's a highly corrosive (to cars) substance, when combined with moisture.

Cheers

We use the "Kilrock" granules and containers in our house next to the windows to help reduce the condensation on the windows overnight, it's about £7 for a 2.5kg tub, we get through a couple of tubs per winter. I have used them to dry out cars in the past and it does work well, certainly worth a go, but definitely put the container thing in a bowl - the car I left mine in was not used all the time and the container was overflowed when I looked at it the next time!

I know you didn't ask for this advice, but:

I had this problem for a long time on my VW GTI and couldn't find the leak, until someone mentioned to me that modern cars are built with what's called a "Wet Door" design. Meaning the inside of the doors are designed to be very wet all the time. If you take off the interior door trim, there is a flimsy piece of plastic and a generally substandard glue/stickystuff seal holding it in place. If the floor of your car is wet, odds are it's coming in from there. You have to figure out how to get the interior door trim off and re-seal that bit of plastic so the rain doesn't get in any more.




Keep in mind that the carpet isn't the only thing under your feet. On my GTI, there was also a half-inch-thick layer of fibrous padding under the carpet. If that get soaked, you're fscked and your only solution is to remove the trim bits around the edge of the carpet, lift up the carpet, and dig out the sopping wet (and by now likely moldy) padding. Which, by the way, isn't designed to be removable, it's glued to the floor pan. Have phun....

On the Morgan, I have been thinking about simply fitting a drain plug. Easy to do, as the floor is just a piece of flat plywood.

But as to the drying out issue - I second the recommendation of a small electric fan/heater set on low, that's what I use with the Bristol and the Land Rovers.

I think it was a Top Gear special in Africa where they made a drainage hole by using a shotgun...

I had a draining hole in the boot of my first car (hyundai pony ), but the rubber plug was lost, so even more water came in while driving then it drained while standing still.

We once went shopping in the TVR Cerbera - bought a 5 litre tin of paint and had an enthusiastic drive home. Oops. Paint all over the boot

Being fibreglass I drilled a hole in the boot, turned a hosepipe into it and rinsed it all out. Left the boot open with a fan heater set on cold and it was sorted.

I like plastic cars

Run the heat on hi and engage the A/C at the same time.

The A/C will act as a dehumidifier for the incoming air. Heating the air will pull more water out of the damp fabrics.

This works for removing dampness pretty well.

... on a small scale, such as fog on the windows. But on a large scale like soaked floors, I don't think it'll do much to help that.

Fog on the windows, comes from dampness in the fabrics.

But, no it won't remove that odd gallon or two from the footwells.

It was raining yesterday, and the carpet didn't seem to be any more damp, so I figure it was a one-off event.

I'll pick some up from the local DIY store (we've got a B&Q and a Homebase within 10 minutes) in the next couple of days.

Pardon my curiosity, but I've just been out and checked our 3 cars and the carpets are either held with Velcro and poppers, you just take them out and hang them on the line. Is the tendency with manufacturers now to glue them in immovably?

I did try taking out the carpet in my Mazda just a little when trying to run cables under it to the boot. Its actually quite difficult. Sure there is no glue, and it really is all poppers and natty little screw-in clips, but its held down all over the place. By the kickplates, seats, runners for the front seats, pillar trim, wheelarch trim, centre console, rear vents etc etc. Its all one piece and very stiff too. Not as easy as it sounds.

And once you've prepared your calcium chloride solution, you can use it to make apple caviar, or, as someone did for a dinner party I went to recently, make creme-de-cassis caviar and drop spoonfuls of it in champagne glasses. The champagne bubbles catch the gel spheres and carry them round, and it was like drinking Kir Royale out of a lava lamp.

Peter

Yes, I checked, and it is indeed calcium chloride. Corrosive-ish, on steel, but then so is ordinary salt to an even greater extent. The moral of the story is don't spill it

pca

It rained more heavily yesterday, and the carpet's wet again I'm going to pick up some dehumidifier anyway (B&Q didn't have any, so I'll try Homebase), but I think I might have to take it to the garage.

It's that plastic vapor barrier inside one of the doors, I'm tellin' ya.

And especially so on aluminium.



And don't spread it on to the floor carpets of a car, either!

Cheers

I'm saying door/windscreen/tailgate seals....

One way to find out.

- Open the car door all the way.

- Roll up its window all the way.

- Take hose. Make the hose pour out water at a high rate, but not so high that it sprays and spurts. Just a nice solid gentle stream.

- Have girlfriend direct hose carefully at the OUTSIDE of the window so that the water rolls gently down the outer face of the window and into the slot at its base. Have girlfriend move the hose forward and backward along the length of the window so that the entire slot gets covered.

- While girlfriend does that, get down on knees and look at underside edge of door.

- Properly functioning door will have water pouring out of drain holes that release the water safely outside the door seals.

- Door with faulty vapor barrier may have the same as the above, but will also have water pouring out of the joint between the interior door trim and the metal of the door itself. It is this joint that is *inside* the car and results in rain getting your car floor wet.

- Repeat test for all doors on the car.

If you see the vapor barriers leak, remove door interior trim panel, and repair with tons of RTV silicone around all edges and all cracks/lifts/etc. in the vapor barrier.

If it passes this test, then definitely move on to look for other seals, including and especially the windshield seal, as Andy said.

If this floor-wetting issue tends to happen with the car standing completely still (for instance, it rains overnight and your floor is soaked in the morning), high degree of probability you're looking at door vapor barriers being faulty.

If the floor-wetting issue tends to happen only when you've been driving the car around a lot in the rain, then it's likely to be other seals like the windshield or door seals.

All very good, but I don't think Roger's wife will appreciate him inviting his girlfriend round

Hey, his wife *is* his girlfriend.

At least I hope she's his friend, too. It would be sad if they were married but not friends.

Hence the plastic bucket

pca