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General Drying things out

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General Drying things out

Shelxs

Shelxs

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Dec 3, 2007
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Morning everyone!
Since my car let lots of water in a few weeks ago it has never dried out and is damp under the lining, both on the floor and under the plastic that covers the bit behind the seats.
My garage won't dry it out under warranty, they want £150. I'm worried that if I don't get it done it could start rusting. What do you think of this price?
Also I wondered if it is possible to 'loosen' some bits of the plastic to let air circulate around when I'm driving with the heater on. There are what look like poppers along the bottom the the cover near the floor behind the seats. Are these poppers? I pulled a little but it didn't want to come off and and didn't want to pull really hard incase i did some damage.
xS
 
If the garage replaced an item under waranty then they should also fix any problems with the failure of the part, SO I would push it and threaten trading standards if they refuse.

To be honest there is a bit of work involved, both seats need to come out, centre console, and all the dash from the radio down as well as all of the side trims. One thing you have to be carefull of is ripping the mat where the screws and poppers go through it.

If you take off the side trims where the speaker pods are make sure that you keep a list of what screws have been removed from where can even take a photo first.

I'm not sure what you mean by poppers? if they are like small plastic plugs on the rear bulkhead they should pop out with a bit of effort the rest of the trim I think are screws.......post a pic if you can.
 
They say they would strip the whole car out, seats, armrests etc and lay everything out to dry it. In the mean time I would have to buy a cover just to make sure it doesn't all get wet again. But I wonder if I can undo thing a bit and drive around with the heater on full blast if that will do the trick? Save me a bit of money. Or I could see if my Dad is up for a project when I go for a visit and get him to do it, thouigh I can imagine it all coming out and then not going back in quite right!#
xS
 
It's pretty straight forward, I doubt that having the heater on while the trims are removed will dry it out as the sponge carpets are so thick, but your idea re a de-humidifier with the trims off will certainly help.....

Oh! I start work at 11 and the way things have been this week the finishing time at 9 may be extended....
 
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Here's a pic of the 'poppers', can I pull them?!

poppers.jpg
 
Do you have access to a reasonably well sealed garage and a dehumidifier?

Alternatively get some big bags of silica gel (see fleabay) and tuck as many as you can into the car for a few days whilst the sun is shining.
 
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I had this exact same problem in my 03 mk 2 B (also silver) last year.

If the water gets in it should not make the sponge under the lining wet unless there is a hole. My lining wore away / split in the drivers side footwell (heavy accelerator foot) and this is where I noticed the water - no amount of hairdrying could dry it out!

The solution was to take the liner out - was well worth it as it was completely soaking (just that side) - took a good 3 days outside in the sun to dry out.

This enabled me / local Fiat / Alfa specialist (got to plug Avanti Autos in Ipswich here as they were brilliant) to then leak test the car - it was not the roof but the water seemed to be coming in from under the nearside front wing. Could not take wing off so they removed the wheel arch liners and seam sealed all the welding joints + the wiring protection boot on the A pillar. I note on the invoice that they also sealed box section in inner wing.

Dry mat was then put back in and to date problem has not returned. Have covered up the hole in the footwell with some bespoke barchetta floor mats so all is well - have been using b in wet and no further ingresses!

Was not cheap (£200 labour) but well worth it for piece of mind! :cool:
 
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To be honest if the sponge under the tray is wet then these will not be effective - I looked into this also but they were not upto the job.

My advice would be to take it out and look for the real cause of the ingress before any lasting damage might be caused.

Why not use the opportunity to do some mods whilst you can hide cables away etc?

I will post pictures of mine if thet helps with your decision. (y)
 
:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

I would go with 'from Italy's' suggestion - remove the liner and dry it out in the open air (or front room)! Also get the hardtop off while the sun's out, there is nothing better than the fresh air to dry things out, blasting warm air through the car with the roof on is not a good idea, you will just cause condensation and get damp patches in places you cannot see............
 
Uomodell'Italia said:
If the water gets in it should not make the sponge under the lining wet unless there is a hole. My lining wore away / split in the drivers side footwell (heavy accelerator foot) and this is where I noticed the water - no amount of hairdrying could dry it out!
Click to expand...

The source of the water ingress was found and corrected so leaking is no longer a problem. If the rear hood cover rubber is perished water gets into the rear bulkhead and then behind the mat where the pics of the poppers are. Due to the shape of the floor the water can then travel forward into the drivers and passengers footwell and if not sorted will start to rot the footwells.

Mechelle the ebay humidifier will be less than useless it will need an industrial type and as said without a sealed garage the humidifier will take water out of the air and not do much good to the car....

The only absolute way of ensuring it is done properly is to remove the mat, when I removed mine it took over a week to dry in the sun, so would push for the garage to do it free as part of the waranty work they have failed to rectify, your car is just over three years old so should not have this problem.

As for the poppers they do pop out, as the car is relatively new they will be stiff. There is a little forked type tool to do this properly but a dull flat blade should be fine. You will have to be carefull incase the blade slips and cuts into the mat so don't use too much force.
 
.. how about taking the B on a North African (Morrocco, Algeria,...) roadtrip for a week as an alternative to finding a sealed garage and industrial dehumidfiers?
 
Well I've emailed the garage to say it should be done under warranty but I don't hold out much hope! Also emailed my local fiat dealership to see if they could do it and how much but so far they haven't bothered replying.
xS
 
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