Just an update on this vehicle, it appears the leak is coming from the trunk and the seal that goes around the door. I haven't pulled back the headliner to see if the hoses from the sunroof drain pan have cracked or failed, but it also appears I am getting some intrusion around the tail lights! No rust as a result, yet, but I got a feeling these vehicle at this age are going to start needing new rubber if you're not planning on fair weather driving them.

I got to gut the interior anyway, because I really feel like it needs to be painted before I do anything else. In that process, I can deal with the seals. Ill be sure to post photos, although it may be quite awhile before I do so. 

So here is the extent of the mold I am dealing with due to whatever is leaking into the rear passengers side footwell.

I imagine the leak is coming in from the right rear sunroof drain, I will have to pull the headliner down to verify this but in the meantime I plan on taking out the front and back seats to remove the carpet. From there I will use white concentrated vinegar to kill the mold on the affected areas, I will also use lysol on most all the other panels to kill any spoors that may have gone airborne. Once the white vinegar has done its magic I will take the carpet and both front floor mats to the power wash and scrub them with soap and water followed up with a nice high pressure rinse from the power-washer. From there I figure I can let them dry in the garage with the heater blowing on them for a few hours. 

If it doesnt work out I may have to get another carpet piece, which I am really hoping that I do not have to do. I have seen much worse than this and honestly this stuff can happen to any car under the floor mats due to moisture. The trick is getting it all cleaned up and stoping the leak and it should not be an issue in the future.

Okay, so I have some ideas and maybe some pointers for other people who may be having water intrusion problems inside the cabin.

So I tore all the rear interior out of the vehicle, rear seats and the passengers front seat. The front drivers has one bolt that is being stubborn but I was not going to let that stop me from seeing what in the hell caused all this carnage.

Now upon getting the seat out I noticed that in addition to the mold from the water intrusion, it looks like someone at one time spilt either coffee or soda all down the fu#king side of the seat!

Clearly this rug has had it! No saving it and even if it did come clean the foam on the backside is all water logged and I question how you would ever get the mold out of that foam.

Here you can see that even though I have been drying out the inside, it is still very wet under the carpet! The carpet has a plastic lining on the bottom along with foam that is attached to that. When it gets to the point it is molding, well it might be too late! So keep an eye on this area if you own one of these vehicle and keep it parked outside! Moving on, the first thing I wanted to check was the sunroof drains

There are four drains like this on all four corners of the sunroof pan, these are the drains for the sunroof pan. This one has a little rust but is not leaking. Often times if you see wetness or water stains on the headliner at the corners of the sunroof drain it means that this plastic hose has split and is leaking the water directly onto and thru the headliner. Again, there will be tell-tale water stains on the headliner if this is the case, but in this case the drain nearest the water intrusion is not leaking and the hose is very soft and un-split. 

This next photo is the drain hose that sits right behind the rear tires on both sides, there is also one on each side up front that also sit behind the front tires. I poured water into a slightly open moonroof to ensure the water was draining out of this hole and it was draining properly as it should. 

The next step was to check the seal around the moonroof tray itself.

Everything looked to be real nice here with no signs of water intrusion, however there was one area towards the middle of the drain pan just left of the front seat belt adjuster that did look suspect and even had little water marks ever so slightly on the headliner

There has obviously been some leakage at this area but nothing to the extent that was filling up the rear footwell. Clearly this is a small leak as the headliner was not stained enough to suggest all this water was coming from this one area. Still, it would have to be repaired to ensure it does not get worse, but it was not the monster leaker I was looking for.

Here in the photo above is another area that I noticed there had been obvious signs of water intrusion, this photo above is of the rear seat belt retractors just behind the rear interior quarter trim panels. Clearly something had been leaking in this area and it was the exact same way on the drivers side as well! I can only think this may have been cause by windows left down, or even worse yet the rear windshield seal! 

Moving right along I inspected the area on the rocker panel, right where the rear door and plastic sill panel are mounted and sure enough, a completely rusted clip for the fabric tube moldings for the doors indicated a longtime leak, and not only that you could see water stains running down the interior part of the rocker panel, right into the passengers side floor pan! This was the massive leak I was looking for

As you can see in the photo above, this is where we are getting water intrusion. The telltale water marks, the rusted clip and the location just about says it all. Of course I wished I had known this before going thru all the trouble pulling down the headliner! LOL! 

So in my opinion, if you have water intrusion in your rear passengers footwell and you do not have water stains on your headliner it is a good chance that your water leak is coming from the door seal on your passengers side rear door! I have yet to prove it because it is too cold to run a hose to simulate the running of high volumes of water but from what I can see it is a very high probability that the door seal is allowing water past and it leaks down and into the floor pan.

I am going to find the leak, one way or the other! I do not want to be dealing with this again and I am almost positive the leak is coming from the door seal.

It is going to take a little more time to get this done right, as I really want to swap to more of the Brazil panels anyway as I recently pulled them down from the loft. I got the Brazil interior quarter panels, package tray, and the side pieces for the center console, which as you can see are quite filthy anyway. It would be great to find a new carpet in Brazil as the mushroom is just too light for my tastes. Might have to buy a whole other damn car just for the carpet....