We had some pretty intense rain in Minnesota lately, and yesterday my wife found standing water in the passenger footwell in the S40. I pulled out the vent/duct elbow like fittings under both the driver and passenger seat to find standing water filling the whole of the duct. The car wasn't driven in the rain, just parked on dry ground while a few inches per hour fell. The area around the sunroof, under the dash, long the door deals doors, etc. are all bone dry.

Does anyone have any idea where the water might have entered? Has anyone seen anything similar in a S40 or other volvo? Not willing to wait until our dealer's service center opens on Monday we're doing what we can to dry things out, but I'm quite interested in figuring out what happened and how to prevent it.

Any information appreciated, thanks.

 

Hello Ryan,

Welcome to the forum, I wish you find it helpful & enjoyable.

Sorry about the problem. Please note, that my advice is based on my knowledge on the 850, but may apply to S40.

If the door weather strips are fine and you cannot see any obvious damage around them, the only place I can think of is the drain hose from the sunroof drain garter was disconnected and water is not directed onto the ground and finding its way into the cabin.

On the next sunny (cloudy) day, try pouring a bucket of water from top of the car to see if you can duplicate the leak. Finding the source of leak is half the battle.

Sorry I couldn't give you any better advice.


JPN

 

You cant really prevent it, what happened is you AC condesor or evaporater busted or like my car, your drain is clogged or broken and needs to be fixed, place towels in the foot well and vaccume it out as good as u can with a wet dry vac. My carpet was so saturated they just ordered me brand new carpet as the carpet is so thick it really wouldnt dry.

Good luck, bring it in, ur gunna be without it for prolly 5 days

 

I know it's not the evaporator since the AC wasn't running for a week previous -- I've had that happen in a volvo 740 years ago. I think you're right that it's a plugged drain. I parked it in a small garage w/ a dehumiified running last night and when I pulled it out I found a small puddle that I'd guess is a very slowly dipping plugged drain hole. Meanwhile, there's still standing water in the underseat vents despite my best efforts to dry them -- it's off to the dealer tomorrow.

Thanks for help/comments,

 

JPN had it. Disconnected drain hose on the sunroof was dumping into the footwell. They've fixed the hose leak and they're replacing the floor pad and carpet under warranty. What's more they made the fix Monday and Monday night we got another wopping rain storm. I found the car in the lot Tuesday morning and verified that no more water had leaked in.

Thanks,

 

Looks like I spoke too soon. We just had a big downpour and the floor is full of water again. I looked in the passenger dash through the vent in the A pillar, and it's very wet in there. What's more, when I started rooting around under the carpet joint under the passenger seat I saw the footwell is packed with red shop rags. Back to Borton Volvo (Minneapolis) tomorrow.

 

I had the same issue with my 2005 s40 this year. Don Beyer Volvo told me that the hoses from the sunroof had shrunk up and clogged, requiring replacement of the hoses. Because I had more than 50K miles on the car (I drive 50 miles a day between home and work), they wanted to charge me $350 for the repair. I'm still working to have them reduce that charge, because it sounds like a manufacturer's defect in the hoses to me...

 

So nearly as I can tell ours were never connected. Either water would always just flow down the B pillar and into the footwells, but usually it wasn't enough to rise above the level of the carpet and become noticeable or there wasn't often rain hard enough to push past the sunroof seal and into the gutter. Either way it seems to be fixed now, but the car still smells of mold. We just don't talk about it anymore.

 

So what was the fix? My 07 has water dripping passanger side it will actually hit your feet. It appears to be coming from the blower plennum???? It did it today after sitting in the rain last night. The Volvo dealer is an hour away and they are worthless so I am almost certain they will tell me they can't verify it. I guess I will check my moonroof drains at the "A" pillar before I call them. Any help PLEASE!!!!!!