Our HCHII 2008 lives in Oregon and doesn't have a garage [our 1983 Volvo got that privilege]. It rains in Oregon, quite a bit. And now I'm getting a lot of condensation (sometimes frozen), inside the car.

In fact, last year, we got an IMA error code and I thought we were going to get a new battery. Dealer said the contacts were wet and just needed to be dried out. They'd be glad to have their body shop locate the leak...for a price. [Since they charge $75 to change the cabin air filter, I shudder to think what that price would be.]

Now for the detective work: None of the carpets feel wet, other than light condensation. But when I lift up the rear seat, bingo!, the foam pads under the seat are really wet. The top part of that seat is not wet.

So how does the water get there? I've cleaned out the channels inside the trunk lid. It's kind of weird that there's no flashing around the rear window, but it seems to be solidly glued to its frame.

At this point, I'm wondering if 1) I take the car to a body shop for their expertise, 2) take it to a glass shop to see about having them lift off the rear glass and reseal it, or 3) have the glass shop or me just caulk the heck around the edges of the rear window.

Suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

Pull the rear seat, back deck and side panels. Take it through a car wash and see where you're getting water ingress. Nothing like a pressure wash to show you where you have a leak...

 

As always, good ideas, S Keith.

My first idea, since I am both ill with flu residual and at work during the days...is to pull out the rear seat and at least let it dry out in the garage for awhile. That would also provide a point to see where water might be entering.

I'm just talking about the bench part of the rear seat, the thing one puts one's butt upon. I can lift it up at all points, I have dropped the seat-belt sockets through the slots, but I can't figure out how to pull out the seat....it's held by a mysterious force field or some kind of restraint holding onto it.

Any hints on getting the seat out of there?

 

There is a center segment in the rear seat for the middle passenger. If you look between the upper and lower cushions about six inches left and right of centerline while pressing the lower cushion down to increase the gap, you will be able to see 2 10mm bolt heads peeking out. Removal of those two bolts is required to remove the lower seat cushion.

Pictured here:



From Hybrid Automotive grid charger instructions here:

https://hybridautomotive.com/pages/install-c2-1

That page basically tells you how to pull the battery or nearly so.

 

Had a couple of daylight minutes at home today. The very wet rear seat is now drying out in the garage, and I've used a chamois on the flat deck below it. The top of the cushion has only superficial dampness (which everything in the car has, from condensation), I can't detect any but superficial dampness in the seat back, no floor moisture, etc. So I may try a water test tomorrow, but this has to be coming from the rear window. If it were a door, the water would be on the floor.

So....I called local glass shop, they said they could look at it, might need to re-seal. I may try the ol' water test first...Anyone else had this issue??

 

Here's where it's getting mysterious...

1) My wife took the car to glass place yesterday. They said they could do the fancy tests (for $280!) but it looked like the rear window was sealed just fine, and we've never had to replace that window. But the trunk was wet.

2) I opened up the trunk, and found the front wall (the back of the rear seat) and the side walls dry. The lid over the spare tire was barely damp, as though it were just condensation.
The spare tire well had something like over a quart of water I vacuumed up, and the hollow of the spare was almost full of water. Can't figure out how water could get in there with the lid above, unless it's been sloshing around from below the spare.
The rear seat (the part you sit on) is wet on its bottom side. Floors all around are dry, or at most seem to have just condensation on them.
I'm not finding any holes in the trunk that would allow water in, and the trunk-lid gaskets all appear fine.

3) Next step is to try our local body shop for ideas. For now, we're just letting the car dry out in the garage while our 34 year old Volvo gets some rain of its own, as we have only a one-car garage. [I took out the fuse for the interior lights, as couldn't figure out how to turn off the trunk light.]
This is just plain mysterious....

 

Did you ever do a spray test?

 

Yes, indeed. In fact, last night, as I had things pretty emptied out (rear seat out, trunk cleaned out...).

The hose nozzle and hose I had handy don't quite put out a knock-the-paint-off stream, but I lined the trunk with newspaper so I could see water leaks, sprayed rear window, roof, all around the trunk, taillights, rear wheel wells, and everything stayed dry as the proverbial bone, other than expected drips from the trunk lid when I opened it up. The water pressure was kind of like a medium rainstorm, not a flood.

I did clean out some cedar needles from the channels under the trunk lid, but we're not talking major jam. And the gaskets do look good.

This being Oregon, we're expecting heavy rain today--my wife will be using the car this afternoon, so I'm asking her to inspect the area where the rear seat was and the spare-tire well.

It's all pretty mysterious. I did call our dealer, who offered to do the test for $600 and having the car for three days; I don't think I'm going to take them up on their offer, but a neighbor reports a local body shop tested and fixed for $250, and I'm just about to go for that.

My best guess at this point is that when we really have a gusher, the trunk water channels make like Oroville, CA and the water overflows, pushing past the gaskets. And we have have some big thunderstorms in the past weeks, which could account for the water I found. But I did pretty imitate a pretty heavy water flow last night and saw no drips on the weatherstripping.

S. Keith...thanks again! (now if the water would only somehow revive our gradually-failing battery...)

 

An automatic power wash might get you there too.


I know you know it, but water and the IMA won't get along well...


If I haven't mentioned it before, grid charging will likely extend the life of your battery significantly.

 

Yep, a power wash might do what we want. I'll see what the trunk looks like after today's heavy rain, though. I'm almost wondering if the leak is happening only when the car is moving, but that sounds unlikely.

And yes on the battery issues--last year when I thought our IMA had bit the dust, I took the car to our dealer, and they found that terminals had been shorted out from the water leak. That diagnosis cost me a bit all by itself.

You and I have discussed the grid charging bit, and I've been in touch with Bumblebee, who are only across town from me. I'm not quite as gutsy as you on building my own charger, and I weigh the cost vs. benefit of buying a grid charger or just giving up and buying a new battery when the time comes. Our car has lasted 9.5 years on original battery, I'm thinking of keeping the car another 5 or so years, and there's that gamble of putting in the money on the charger or buying new battery when the battery is really dead. I think I'm a bit redundant here...
Actually, another choice is to pay Bumblebee to recondition the battery, but that option is not so cheap, either. They recommend against the lightbulb method for discharging,...but when I have some time this summer I may just do the S. Keith thing and hack together a charger.