Help, 97 Es 300 Right Rear Seat Floor Water Soakin

[jl3z5]

I am glad to meet you all at this club.

We just bought a 1997 Lexus ES300. There are heavy rains several days ago, so we did not drive the car. Today when we were checking the car before driving, we found that the floor carpet of right rear passenger seat is soaking in the water, and there is also water under the right front carpet, but not so much comparing with the right rear one. All the front and rear seats are dry, and the floor of right side are dry.

Would you please kindly give the clue for solving the problem and how to fix it?

Thanks for your kind advice.

Jason

[Sniper]

Jason

I have the same problem in a 02 ES.

Under the floor mats (all of them) the carpets are wet and the bottom of the mats are wet as well. I have no clue why its doing that. I'm about to post a new topic concerning that.

There hasn't been any rain here in St. Louis lately and I cant understand why...Have you called the dealer.

[Sniper]

Jut got news about wet floor mats..

Service tech from dealer told me that the 2 most common causes are:

When places like a "jiffy lube" or " quick lube" service a lexus the dont like the AC drain to drip on them....so they usually move or hang the drain tube in a different place and they forget to reposition it when they're done..those idiots.

2ndly, the sunroof drains could be clogged up. There are a couple of topics on here about that.

Check and see if its your AC drain....Run you AC for a short time(while idle) and turn it off, if there is no water on the pavement then thats probably your problem.

[Sniper]

Problem solved!

Went to a local car shop. asked the fellas to apply a little bit of air pressure in my AC drain AND sun roof drains. I ran the AC for a few minutes afterwards and there was a good amount of water on the pavement (water I had not been seeing before). Carpets are dry!

[BeachBumForever]

Would a member please post or describe where these drain hoses are located on the ES 300. Thanks in advance.

[gbhrps]

Gentlemen,

Every car with AC will have a rubber drain hose that comes off the bottom of the heater box (Subaru's have it on the bottom of the heater fan casing) and goes through the firewall to drain the condensation onto the ground. On an ES300 you can't see it from the engine compartment, but it is visible from below the car when its on a hoist or jack stands. Usually, poking a wire up the hose from below the car is all that is needed to start it draining again.

Hint: you can expect that there will be a small puddle of water under the car whenever you run the AC, so if you don't see water dripping down when the AC is running (or just after turning the car off), its highly possible your drain is plugged, and water will soon find its way onto the floor pans.

If you have a sunroof, there will be 4 drains, one at each front end corner of the sunroof that have drain tubes that run down the inside of the A pillar to the ground. As well, there are two (one each side) that run down the C pillar, usually to exit out the body of the car behind the rear wheel, between the body and the rear bumper cover. Picture where the rear of the sunroof would be under the headliner when the sunroof is fully open. That is where the rear drains are located at each rear corner.

Sunroofs keep most of the water out, but some gets by the seals and runs in the slide channels of the sunroof to empty into these drain tubes. If the tubes get plugged with dirt/leaves the water backs up into the headliner and then to the floor. Sometimes a wire can be poked down these drain tubes to free them up, or if an air hose can be positioned correctly, they can be blown out Then, sometimes old age cracks these plastic drain tubes and they leak water from the same locations.

Generally if water is on the rear floor ... the rear sunroof drain is plugged/split/come off the channel, but some floor pans by their shape will allow water from the front floor area drain to the rear floor, or if the car is parked on an uphill incline.