what is best way to dry out carpets after footwell flooded ?

[stevo72]

well it had to happen one day and when it did, it happened proper........drivers side front and rear flooded after a night of heavy rain!....i had a paddling pool for my feet

from others who have experienced the same, what have you found the best way to dry out the carpet ? so far i am using a wet and dry hoover which is sucking up loads, opened up the drain plugs under the car

now its a case of trying to find out how the water got in, i know there are lots of threads, looks like it couuld be the door seals as it has flooded front and rear ? is it an easy job to undertake yourself? and if opted for garage instead, idea of costs ? compared with DIY ?

cheers

steve

 

[DPJ]

(Not my car) I used an industrial carpet cleaner to suck the water out, and used a heat gun to accelerate the drying. (Much care needed). We got about 8 litres of water out.

 

[adam cupra 20vt]

I used a wet vac to when my door seal failed.

 

[Slimy]

It's not the carpet you need to worry about, it's the sponge underneath. The carpet is really thin and dries out very quickly, but the sponge needs the extra work.

Up until the weekend my mate had most of his interior out and the sponge lifted so it could dry out.

 

[turbo009]

I have same problem with rear foot well flood. Weekend i will be re sealing my 2 door's

 

[wayne lcr]

took my carpet up then cutt the foam underneath rite up near the centre consoled took it in the house and dryed it with a carpet vac and left it to dry in the bath over nite and then putt it back in and sealed it back down with proper carpet stuff

 

[tedvagas]

I had this problem with my leon, water was getting in from both front door seals the strange thing about it was the water was getting under the carpet so it was only after I was getting a horrid smell from the foot well i knew there was a leak.

there was no way out for me i had to strip the car interior out , and replaced the underlay with another from my local breakers , luckily mk4 golfs share the same carpets and underlay , once re fitted and the seals fixed ive had no problems and I noticed the golfs underlay was better quality than the one taken out

 

[Deleted member 48395]

My local dealer charged me £185 to have both the front doors done. As for drying, I put towels down in the footwells, weighed down by cast iron plates. When driving I had the heat up as well. Once the towels were coming up dry I noticed the rear footwell was still squelching so pulled the carpet back to get at the underlay. It was drenched. So more towels undernear the underlay got things sorted. If you remove the plastic covers over the runners you can pull the carpet futher. All towels coming up dry now, so now going to put in silica gel to grab any moisture that appears during the day.

If you get the carput pulled back, I would try and get the wet vac in, I imagine that will help an awful lot.

 

[MarkWales]

I have a moisture trap in my car similar to

picked mine up in local discount store B&M - hypervalue pound stop etc

 

[heatfan8]

You will need to take the carpet out. I havent had the problem with my leon yet (touch wood!!) but my mates non leon had a leak and it made the drivers footwell a bit wet. On further investigation all of the underlay on the drivers side was drenched. We stripped the carpet out and it is still in his garage drying!

 

[stevo72]

thank for the info, looks like i will be spending the weekend taking up the carpet ! is that an easy job to do ??

 

[DJ-LIAMC]

I use ............Newspaper!

 

[MJ]

the best way is usually to completely remove the carpets and underlay and hang them to dry in a warm place, whilst its all out remove any excess water from the vehicle and cut some criss-cross holes in the rubber bungs in the bottom of the shell to allow any water left to escape.

 

[Graham89]

Looks like im stripping the interior out when i get car back