Water Leak Into Passenger Side Floor

[Matp]

2015 rx450h - couldn’t find the drain holes for the sunroof. Then saw the diagrams posted on another site. The drain hole is on the front side (on each side). Ran a weed wackier line (1.9) with a point crafted with wire cutters at a slant down the hole. Water immediately ran out on the driveway.

[Matp]

Hole is just left of the spring in the photo.

[care_mentor_288]

I made an account just to post to this thread!

Thank you to @zeppo, @lexuswoo, BROUWERS, TriniLex, Erik Kirkhuff the swiss army knife, and so many others showing videos and photos of this problem!

I think I've cleared the hose line and the drain in-between the body panels, and when I pour water at a slow or medium pace it drains just fine, but if I pour at a fast pace, like empty an entire 16 ounce water bottle quickly, it overflows and runs into the footwell/wheel well. 

Question 1: Is it supposed to overflow into the cabin footwell if you dump a lot of water quickly, or should it always handle whatever can flow down the hose?

Question 2: What are some ways that I can dry the carpet and insulation foam backing without removing it all? It's raining outside and winter so I can't just leave the car open with a fan on. 

 

Backstory:
The other day I came out to a smell in the 2007 Lexus RX400h and found it was the passenger foot well / wheelwell and it was absolutely soaked. When I squeezed the carpet water would just squirt out of the carpet and insulation foam backing. 

It seemed to have gone from dry to soaking in just a few days of heavy rain so I'm confused what could have happened. 

I'd love to figure out why it went from dry to completely soaked over a few days! Any ideas? Did I leave the sunroof cracked a hair? Did it finally backup and we had a few huge rain storms? Has it been wet for awhile but for some reason just started to smell? 

I pulled up the mats (thanks to so many instructions on removing them and the side trim) and set to work. 

When I poured water in the sunroof drain it would come out inside the passenger side foot well AND it would come out under the car, a bit towards the center from a large hole. When I checked the sunroof drains there were some small leaves and sticks near the entrance, but definitely not a ton of of obvious blockage at the top. 

What I've done and my thoughts about it:
- Blew out the lines with compressed air <-- After this I still was getting some overflow into the foot well, but I think this is a good first step!
- Had a local shop remove and clean out the plastic rocker panel side skirt molding at the bottom of the car <-- There were leaves and things filling inside of here and I thought it was making the drains back up. I don't think this was necessary, but after cleaning it out water flowed out of the holes in the bottom of it more than they did before, or at least more quickly.  If you do this yourself it seems pretty easy but you might need replacement body clips (these are the black plastic bits that have a center peg in them)
- Took the plastic wire clip holder out from inside the foot well so I could get to the bottom of the hose <-- this wasn't necessary and I set off the car alarm when I plugged things back in, but it made it a lot easier to access things later. I'm glad I did this
- Pushed  weed wacker plastic wire down the hose to the end <-- It was helpful to make marks ~every 8 inches on the wire so I could see how much progress I was making. I went back and forth with the wire and eventually got it to the end. Once I got it to the end I pulled it back and forth and ran water through the hose. When I ran water through the hose it ran pretty dirty, and cleared a lot of sediment and dirt, but not much large debris. In case it is helpful, I probably used about 4 feet of plastic wire. 
- Bent a coat hanger and put it through the gasket in the cavity between the body panels next to the footwell. Once I found the drain I pushed and pulled up and down and pushed hard down as well. It took some poking, but was relatively easy to figure out when I got it into the gasket because it suddenly went much further down than it had previously. I also checked it by sticking my phone into the hole and taking a video. The gasket is hard plastic, not rubber. The hole goes down at least 2 inches. (I could have done this from the lowest hole without taking the electrical connector panel out, but I had already taken it out to look inside and it let me get more deep into the drain hole. <-- This helped me realize the gasket hole is WAY to small to fit the hose, it never would have gone in there, and the gasket is too hard to make the hole larger (without a lot of trouble).
I thought this would work. I tried pouring water at a medium flow and none came into the footwell! BUT once I put everything back together and tried water again at a medium flow it came out into the footwell again!!!!! I think maybe the reason is that when you put the big plastic box that has all of the connectors in it back into the cavity it pushes the hose up against the wall and shortens it. So then the hose hangs up ABOVE the lowest hole into the footwell instead of just next to the drain hole. (Or maybe I needed to move the hose to the side of the electronics box)
-  Extended the hose: Added ~4 inches of hose to extend it. <-- 3/8 inch outer diameter plastic tubing / plastic hose fits snugly into the OEM hose. I sprayed it with rubbing alcohol to make it slide further into the OEM hose. The total length of hose was probably 7 or 8 inches, 3 or 4 inside and 3 to 5 inches sticking out further. The end of the hose was steeply angled and had a split up probably 1/2 an inch so it had lots of flow at the end, but still guided the water. I think this made a difference so that the OEM hose wouldn't splash around so much. (used the hose size from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzTpukdyv1w )
- Poured about 12 oz of water down at a medium pace and nothing came into the cabin
- Poured about 16 ounces of water at a fast pace and a bunch came out into the foot well.

 

 

Some useful links and helpful thoughts:
- I would not use draino/drano! I read about this and it sounds like the consequences are not good if it doesn't work well. 
- Extremely helpful pictures and discussion, but I disagree with LexusFixer because the drain isn't big enough for the hose to fit in https://www.clublexus.com/forums/rx-2nd-gen-2004-2009/648923-sunroof-moonroof-leak-3.html
- Video of coathanger method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDbEsBJLhx0 
- Diagram of the roof: https://parts.lexusstevenscreek.com/v-2006-lexus-rx400h--base--3-3l-v6-electric-gas/body--sunroof
- Rocker side skirt part: Rocker Panel Molding Side Skirt Grey 75850-48010, A912, OEM, 2006, 2007, 2008
- Useful post: https://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/topic/96632-rx400h-sunroof-drain-holes/ 
- Useful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzTpukdyv1w 
- Another useful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVJW0XM2x24 

 

 

 

Pictures:
Maybe some of these will be useful for you

Inside of cavity. You can see the hard gasket in there with the hole in the middle.

 

Coat hanger in the drain hole:

 

A light coming into the lowest hole into the footwell. Shoes how far above the drain hole it is. This is where water was coming from for me:

 

Water dripping through the hose. You can see that the hose doesn't touch the bottom of the cavity:

 

The hose extension I've rigged up with the large slit in case debris gets stuck or something:

 

 

 

Videos:
Maybe some of these will be useful for you

Dripping into the drain, you can see the hose dangling. The problem is when the connector box is back in it probably makes the hose shorter so you get splash into the hole into the footwell. 

Dripping into drain.mov

A light coming into the lowest hole into the footwell. Shoes how far above the drain hole it is. This is where water was coming from for me:

Light coming into lowest hole above drain.mov

Poking a coat hanger in the drain hole:

Coathanger in drain.mov

Pouring a medium flow of water through the hose into the cavity from the sunroof:

Water coming through hose.mov

Hose extender on and pouring water through at a medium flow from the sunroof:

Water through extended hose.mov

 

Thanks for reading this far. Hopefully something here was helpful. 

Edited February 18 by care_mentor_288

[HaloRomeo27]

Yes that is a common issue i have completely corrected mine i extended the line and added a fitting so it drains straight though the rubber garment have never had water issue since 

[care_mentor_288]

21 minutes ago, HaloRomeo27 said:

Yes that is a common issue i have completely corrected mine i extended the line and added a fitting so it drains straight though the rubber garment have never had water issue since 

That is a great idea!

How did you get the hose through the hole? 

It seemed like the hole was way to small and the plastic was hard. 

 

[HaloRomeo27]

34 minutes ago, care_mentor_288 said:

That is a great idea!

How did you get the hose through the hole? 

It seemed like the hole was way to small and the plastic was hard. 

 

It was not the easy way most take but I pulled out the existing line and cut it off and added a plastic barb fitting and crimp clamps to make sure it would not come apart then I had to remove the fender liner to get access to that drain poped it out measured the length of a new line I needed same diameter as factory added another barb fitting and crimped the line side the other side went down in the rubber garment then I pushed it back down into place the job is time-consuming but I am not a fan of drilling holes  

[care_mentor_288]

2 hours ago, HaloRomeo27 said:

It was not the easy way most take but I pulled out the existing line and cut it off and added a plastic barb fitting and crimp clamps to make sure it would not come apart then I had to remove the fender liner to get access to that drain poped it out measured the length of a new line I needed same diameter as factory added another barb fitting and crimped the line side the other side went down in the rubber garment then I pushed it back down into place the job is time-consuming but I am not a fan of drilling holes  

That sounds very smart.

Is the fender liner the black pastic piece that goes along the bottom of the car? 

I was thinking of making the drain hole bigger, if I take off that plastic can I easily access the grommet/drain where the hose ends? 

[HaloRomeo27]

12 hours ago, care_mentor_288 said:

That sounds very smart.

Is the fender liner the black pastic piece that goes along the bottom of the car? 

I was thinking of making the drain hole bigger, if I take off that plastic can I easily access the grommet/drain where the hose ends? 

Yes you will need to remove the inner fender liner now there will not be no big access point but you will be able to use a long screw driver to remove the rubber garment as far as making the drain hole bigger there is absolutely no reason for that when the weather warms up a bit here i will go back and take it apart and take pictures of the process so everyone can have a better understanding of the design 

[care_mentor_288]

8 hours ago, HaloRomeo27 said:

Yes you will need to remove the inner fender liner now there will not be no big access point but you will be able to use a long screw driver to remove the rubber garment as far as making the drain hole bigger there is absolutely no reason for that when the weather warms up a bit here i will go back and take it apart and take pictures of the process so everyone can have a better understanding of the design 

Thank you, those pictures would be so helpful!

So you put a smaller hose through the smaller drain hole and adapted the roof hose to fit? Sounds like a good idea

[HaloRomeo27]

No I used same diameter line the barb fitting is what will go into the other component the pictures will help out a great deal of. The understanding of it I have a master cylinder to change in a few days so I may go though the drain process as well 

[care_mentor_288]

4 hours ago, HaloRomeo27 said:

No I used same diameter line the barb fitting is what will go into the other component the pictures will help out a great deal of. The understanding of it I have a master cylinder to change in a few days so I may go though the drain process as well 

Ahhh, I see, thanks!

[mattwall]

I'm confused.  Where did you end up routing the hose to?  

[care_mentor_288]

Welp, I knew I should have cleaned the driver's side while cleaning the passenger side.... 

Driver's side flooded last weekend. 

However, now it was quick work with the experience of the passenger side.

Doing it a second time around here are some pro tips:

- Canned air from the top of the rail is a good start

- Coat hanger is the way to go for the bottom

- Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) can really kill any funk in the car.

 

Driver's side tip: The accelerator Stopper Rod looks like it needs to unscrew, but you just pull the mat around it and it comes up. The carpet is just tucked in underneath.

 

The driver's side carpet was soaked. I pulled it all up, put a fan underneath and it dried in ~20 hours (of being in the sun with fans on and windows cracked.

Then I soaked the carpet and floormats in isopropyl, and completely doused them. I used at least a quart just for the driver's side and then used another 2 quarts for the passenger and rear carpets just to try to freshen up the car. Left for another 24 hours.

No smell! This is gold & I'll use this trick again if I need to!