Z3 Water Retention

[Faheem]

As some of you may know many Z3s have an issue with a lot of water being held under the carpet.

The plan is to strip the interior down this weekend where only the dash remains and remove the carpeting from the interior in attempt to hopefully dry out the carpet as well as the interior whilst it's warm outside.

The end result should look something like this

Was wondering if anyone on here has done this previously and if so, do you have any tips or recommendations?

I'm looking forward to it as I've never stripped the interior down in my own z3 so it'll be interesting to see how much money and other crap I find

 

[GazHyde]

There are some rubber plugs in the foot well which can be pushed out which will help you empty the water out easier. They are about 30mm across and black. We did this on the Velvet Individual that Oldgusyrule just bought. Remove the seats and before the carpets come out stand on the carpets to squeeze as much water out as possible as it will make it a little easier to get the wet carpets out.

 

[Faheem]

@GazHyde cheers mate, any idea where the water comes from? I can't imagine that amount of water coming from the a pillars and accumulating under the carpets?

 

[hard top]

I can't imagine that amount of water coming from the a pillars and accumulating under the carpets?

You would be surprised....

 

[billz]

Agree with Mike. You would not notice the water untill it had accumulated quite a bit this could be over a couple of months and with the rain we get it could be a lot less than that. It would be just a steady stream once it starts to leak

 

[hard top]

When my drivers side was leaking and I was parked up outside at work all day and it also pished down all day, I would put a bucket on the drivers seat, by the time I went home, I had half a bucket full.

 

[Antm72]

I had this with my first zed the amount of water was unreal.
It took quite a while to dry out the insulation its very dense and holds alot of water.
Makes you cringe when you see 2 inch of water covering all you electrics!!
Good luck a job worth doing

 

[Faheem]

@Antm72 You had another zed? Got any pictures?

The carpet isn't wet to the touch but I remember when doing the seat bushings that when I flipped the carpet over the sponge was heavily saturated.

How did you go about removing the accelerator pedal? Apparently that's the most difficult part of the job...

 

[Antm72]

The accelerator is clipped in to the floor there is a tab to release it behind the pedal its not the easist but it should come away ok
Old 2.8 looked like this....

I brought it from Swansea after a month of non stop rain. It was the same dry to touch but underneath it was soaked .
Brought loads of spares from your local Bm breaker in Ellistown and the Z3m interior came spotless from Yorkshire for £175 !!
Was a nice car

 

[Faheem]

£175?! Wow. Looks like a very nice car mate. What happened to it if you don't mind me asking?

Those are the exact seats I'm after in that very colour but I feel like it will be a while till I find a reasonably priced pair close to home I can't justify £700 on a pair of seats.

 

[hard top]

Very nice Ant, shame about the pretend roll bar thingy......

 

[Antm72]

It went to Wigston mate when i sold it on needs must at the time swapped it for an Audi A3 2.0TDI
Not seen many black grey combo's out there for sale.
Parts where cheap the whole z3m console with gauges only cost me £60 from the breakers along with the gills for £45 !!
Prices are just not like that now and parts are few and far between or just daft money...

 

[Faheem]

Got everything out today. Took around 2 hours to remove everything.

Saturation was not as bad as I thought initially.

The passenger sponge is wet but the floor is not too bad.

I think after I stopped the car from leaking a lot of the water has dried up

There are rust spots which I plan on sanding down and treating with hammerite direct to rust. Bloody expensive at £18 for 750ml

Question is, what is that??

Here are some pictures

The rust

What's more interesting is I don't know how that got there as the drivers side carpet was bone dry, couldn't get a single drop of water out of the sponge.

Passenger side was a little damp as said but not to the point where water was all over the body when I removed the carpet.

I've cleaned the interior with a degreaser and vacuumed all the crap out, tomorrow hammermite will go on and on Monday hopefully the carpets will go back in.

Edit: picture of the passenger side carpet flipped over showing the dampness.

 

[ZimZimmer]

I'm gonna have to do this I think

The carpet in the drivers footwell was very wet.
Had my hand under the carpet on the drivers side where the join is under the drivers seat and could feel what felt like and inch of water on the floor and the sponge insulation was saturated.
I've hovered the carpet with the wet vac and managed to get the crevice tool thru the gap in the carpet to get some of the water out but that sponge is still soaked.

Would I need to remove the whole carpet as in your pics to access this sponge (under drivers seat) it could I just remove the seat to get at that sponge insulation?

 

[Faheem]

It seems like a daunting job but really isn't and in a weird way I enjoyed it, apart from loosing my bonnet release handle and wind deflector hook.

I think it's best to remove all the carpets from the car and allow the sponge to dry out.

I think when I first bought the car I removed the seats and used a towel to soak up some of the water but it wasn't a perfect job as there was still damp in there.

There are two sections to the carpet, the rear part and the front. The rear is easy to remove, however the front is a little more tricky as the heater control panel gets in the way. I didn't want to remove so I carefully cut around it with a box cutter.

With everything out I thought it was a good time to treat any surface rust with hammerite.

Upon reassembly I used zip ties to secure the carpeting around the heater control panel. This wasn't absolutely necessary but might as well do it right.

Zip ties are not something you'd notice with the interior assembled.

Although it's a long job it's definitely worth doing if you're planning to keep the car for any length of time as there's a whole lot of wiring under the carpets and you don't want that to rot out or worse cause a short.

 

[ZimZimmer]

Is the sponge under both parts of the carpet or just the rear? It feels like just the rear to me but not sure if there's any in the front out of reach?

 

[Antm72]

It's under both but as your car has had s rear screen missing it may have been leaking before it was totally removed so the back may be the worse but be surprised if it wasn't both.

 

[Z-thrill]

I was so pleased that I seemed to be able to dry out the sodden carpet in the passenger footwell (rhd car) just by leaving the roof open on a sunny day, like today. Until I went for a drive in it today and noticed a trickle of water oozing forward from under the seat. I only noticed it by chance. I thought the top had come off a water bottle. Moved passenger seat forward and underneath was Lake Windermere. No water bottle. OMG it took about 20 wringings of a handy sponge before most of the water was up. I set off home again, and when I got there, the lake was back! More sponging and wringing but I gather there's still a huge water reserve down there. Now I don't know what the best course of action is. There's some helpful posts in this thread but it's not clear whether there's apermanent fix. Surely it can't be a case of having to gut the car of seats and carpet after every time it rains?!? I thought about duct tape around the tops of the windows but that's not the best look is it.

Any more help on this welcome, cheers

 

[Faheem]

@Z-thrill

That would mean one of two things, either that water is still entering the car from somewhere or that the sponge under the carpet is so wet that every time someone sits in that seat, the sponge lets out water.

If you still have water entering the car, I advise that you fix this before trying to dry the carpets out.

Common sources of water entering the car are:

• A-Pillar - it would look something like this -
  View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h6gpfkv0jo
  Here's how to fix it: http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=254611
• Windows not lining up correctly - I can't find a guide on this but if your windows aren't meeting up with the roof seal then the window may have fallen off the regulator or the adjusting screw may not be hitting the stop -- or the factory rivet for the regulator could have failed - also very common.
• And another source of water getting into the car is via the heating system from the front of the car - I don't know how common this is but when doing my research, I came across this:
  View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFgH128YA14
  

First step would be to identify where the waters coming from and then once you've addressed that you should then remove your carpets and let them dry.

 

[Z-thrill]

AWesome thanks Faheem

I thought it was just water accumulating after coming in through the tops of the windows (or the A-pillar). Tbh it does look like like that first vid, on my passenger side, when it rains. It's very probably that.

I will check out your advice on the windows sitting right but they look ok at a glance.

(However, I'm not sure the rubber seals on the roof, over the tops of the windows, are set right - or even if they are the right ones. There seems to be a lip on them but it is half an inch higher/further round the roof frame, from the top of the glass, if you see what I mean. I haven't seen another z3 up close so I dunno how they are supposed to sit.)

Cheers!