Sloshing sound and wet passenger feet!
 

Well yesterday I heard the dreaded sloshing sound of water when cornering. The car also dumped a load of water over my passenger's shoes too. She wasn't impressed one bit, and nor was I :(

What should I be tackling first? The orange plug which is prone to blocking? Is this the result of the windscreen tray blocking?

Any or all of the above.
Orange drains will be blocked so clear them first and dry the interior out.
Then you need to figure out why and what the water source is.

The aircon slowly fills the tray that the orange drains are meant to empty, but if it all appeared quickly it's probably rainwater from the scuttle drains being blocked and overflowing into the interior.

Rainwater also brings in crud that blocks the relatively small orange drains quite quickly.

If you decide to attack the scuttle drains with hot water and detergent (worked for me eventually) do it while the interior is apart and you have the orange drains pipes diverted into a suitable capacious collection device.

I sometimes drive with the radio off (to hear the V8 of course) and have never heard sloshing before. We've had torrential rain this weekend which is still going, so I expect that's why. If it clears today then I'll take a look.

Had the windscreen replaced about a month ago too. Could this affect anything?

If I can't fix the problem today then I won't drive it any more until I do.

If it's after a load of rain. have a go at the drains in the front wheel arches - they're very quick and easy to do. You'll find a rubber 'teat' at the top rear of each front wheel arch (no need to remove the wheel).

Just give them a good squeeze (or remove them!) and watch the water drain out all down your arm! :)

It's a 2 minute job.

You could try pressure washing the underside (ideally with an angled jet) in case it's just the sunroof drains that are clogged and it might be enough to get you out of trouble. Mine leaked once or twice from the area around the sunroof controls and that worked to clear it.

Hmm OK, a few options then. I used a long bit of furry pipe cleaner on the sunroof drains (which comes out near the door hinge) a couple of months ago and it cleared some gunk out. I poured 500ml of clean water through it and 500ml came out the end.


I stripped the front carpets out and the undersides of them were soaked, as was the footwell as you can see. I've located the orange plug thing and will pull it out a bit later if it stops raining for good:
http://i61.tinypic.com/347hamv.jpg


Jim, I think I can see where it should be but I can't see any teats to squeeze! Water is steadily dripping out of a hole there though

http://i57.tinypic.com/1zl51tg.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/99q7hc.jpg

People often pull out those wheel-arch teats, looks like a previous owner has done so already.
IMHO they're secondary anyway, the area they drain doesn't collect enough to feed into the sloshing process.

I reckon if you unblock the centre drains a load of water falls out. I found it easier to unblock from the drivers side, close your eyes and use the force.

By centre drains do you mean the two orange plugs? Got to the passenger side orange drain no problem. The water was starting to creep up that wooden board which covers all the electrics so I got to it just in time. The underside of the carpet mat was like a sponge full of water too. Left all the carpets in a warm cupboard and the car is drying out in the garage for a few days while I use the little Fiat +++

Thought I could use a washing up bowl to catch it all but didn't know the drain point was so inaccessible. Used a measuring jug with a pointy spout and about 1 and a quarter litres came out.

Driver's side I haven't done yet. Couldn't remove the trim on the side of the transmission tunnel. Does the panel under the steering wheel need to be removed first?

I'll clear out the sunroof drains again for good measure. Some furry pipe cleaner or clear plastic tubing from B&Q is perfect for it.

No not those, they are your aircon condensate drains. The pipe can be pulled out and then also the orange grommet, so you can clean it out in the kitchen sink.

The centre drains you'll have to access from under the bonnet, remove the plastic cover around the brake fluid reservoir and you'll have to go fishing under the plenum chamber. Have a look with a torch, it should be bone dry down there.
I found that was where the sloshing was coming from on mine, all the other drains were clear and my piece of compressed cardboard that covers the relays i replaced with marine ply as it nearly twice the thickness it should have been, swollen with water.

Sunroof drains i found a length of strimmer line work a treat especially the rear two.

Usually, unless like mine someone has been in before and ripped things out brutally.
The knee panel is attached to a small plastic bracket on the transmission side panel so has to come off first.
IIRC there are about 5 fixings, two behind the pop-off trim strip below the steering wheel, top right, bottom right and bottom left (onto the bracket)

I think it must vary depending on where you park the car. I've only once had to clean out the aircon drains, never had to do the central scuttle drain (but I have checked that it works), nor the sun roof drains, but the wheel arch ones give me the most trouble.

Even without the 'teats' mine block sometimes (particularly the passenger side), but a poke with a bit of wire clears them easily enough.

Alas my scuttle drains are blocked again! :-(

Just wondering if anyone has any particular recommendations for appropriate chemical additives to very hot water that will dissolve the crud most readily.
In the past I've used detergent or washing-up liquid which has worked eventually.

So far it's had one small shot of hot water with washing-up liquid and not achieved anything.

This is what I did last time (for the centre drain under the air-intake box):
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showpost....1&postcount=39

Worked great. No problem since and no ill-effects. I would give it a good flush through afterwards, though I think the drain cleaner would have to be left in there for a long time to do any harm.

Thanks, Sodium Hydroxide which isn't good for aluminium? So thorough flushing afterwards.

As it happens we do have some of that stuff in the kitchen.

Great tip. +++
I only had about 100ml of it left but just 2 minutes after pouring it in stuff started flowing through.
Just going to flush through thoroughly now with a few loads of hot water.

True. But there's probably little, if any, bare aluminium it should come in contact with down there and it's a fairly diluted product.

I suspect the thousands of gallons of rainwater that pass through there over the life of the car are probably far more damaging than 30 mins of contact with diluted sodium hydroxide.

That's great :)

Where you've only used a small amount for a short time, you may not have cleared it completely. Hopefully you have, but if it blocks again you might need to leave more of it in there for longer. I keep a spare bottle of it to hand now, but I haven't had to use it since so it seems to do a thorough job.

Indeed, I'll do the same as I expect only one side has actually cleared properly.

Next time (oh the pessimism with D2 drains!) I'll start with the drain cleaner, it does say it's denser than water so sinks to the bottom quickly to start work.