Damp in car! NEED HELP!!

JoshieBudd · Post by **JoshieBudd** » Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:22 pm

Hi guys,

I am a new and young driver and I recently purchased my first car, being a Renault Clio 2007 1.2L.
There was no room to park the car on my drive so the car was left in a public car park. I live in a fairly rough area and some kids decided to smash my driver's side window with something, shattering it to pieces. I hadn't realised the incident had happened until about a week later, by this time it had rained multiple nights and there was puddles of water inside the car.

I repaired the window manually myself, cleared up all the glass and used a water soaker to remove the puddles and the main moisture. However, mold had started to grow in the car beforehand, I purchased some mold remover spray and removed everything I could.

Everyday I have spent half an hour in the car with the heater on max, trying to circuluate heat around to dry the floor and seats. I have tried using hairdryers, I have bought a dehumidifier bag from Amazon with 4.8Star reviews but this still hasn't removed the moisture from the car. Everyday I return from college to my car the inside windowscreen is wet but the passenger and driver windows aren't really.

I have tried everything I can possibly think of and so I need someone's advice or help, So please leave some suggestions or ideas for causes, anything would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

ayjay · Post by **ayjay** » Thu Jan 23, 2020 6:00 pm

Did you lift the carpet and look underneath?

My VW Passat had a bad leak once (lack of servicing, [by a main dealer], to the gasket under the pollen filter). When I lifted the carpet, the floor was sort of corrugated, there was 3" of water in there.(Somehow the ECU survived immersion for a few weeks).

London mike 61 · Post by **London mike 61** » Thu Jan 23, 2020 6:54 pm

Buy some cat litter and fill some old socks , tights etc and tie the end with wire ties or zip ties , place 2 or 3 in the car for a day or two to absorb all the moisture in the car. When you feel they have absorbed enough water, take them out and either throw away or spread the cat litter out to dry it out and re fill and repeat until all moisture is out of the car.
Cat litter is great for absorbing moisture, folk often use it if they have moisture in the house with water condensing on the windowsill.

Mike

ayjay · Post by **ayjay** » Thu Jan 23, 2020 7:25 pm

London mike 61 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 6:54 pm Buy some cat litter and fill some old socks , tights etc and tie the end with wire ties or zip ties , place 2 or 3 in the car for a day or two to absorb all the moisture in the car. When you feel they have absorbed enough water, take them out and either throw away or spread the cat litter out to dry it out and re fill and repeat until all moisture is out of the car.
Cat litter is great for absorbing moisture, folk often use it if they have moisture in the house with water condensing on the windowsill.

Mike

I tried something similar, thick wads of old newspaper weighed down with house-bricks: that's why it took weeks and still wasn't dry.

Lift the carpet and take a look, unless you know for certain that the floorpan is completely flat.

Rorschach · Post by **Rorschach** » Thu Jan 23, 2020 7:52 pm

We had flooding in our car and I am afraid it does take a very long to dry out. You will get there eventually though. Do you have air con? If so run that on hot as it will dry things much faster.

dewaltdisney · Post by **dewaltdisney** » Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:21 pm

The problem is under that under the carpet is sound deadening material and this is probably holding a lot of the moisture. You really have to get the carpets out, it is not too hard, and leave them indoors to dry out. If you can remove the sound deadening pads and hang them up to drip out or borrow a wet vacuum you can suck quite a lot of water out.

I would suggest that mostly the affected area would be the broken window side front and possibly the rear footwells.

It is a lot of messing around but it is the only way as it will be ages for the moisture to wick out.

DWD

Cannyfixit · Post by **Cannyfixit** » Fri Jan 24, 2020 7:34 am

Had a Focus that leaked water and I ended up with mould all around the back seats ,I found this article worked for me,I still use socks with cat litter in as well just buy cat litter with silica in it as it absorbs better

https://www.carbibles.com/remove-mold-from-car/

Rorschach · Post by **Rorschach** » Fri Jan 24, 2020 8:40 am

Cannyfixit wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 7:34 am Had a Focus that leaked water and I ended up with mould all around the back seats ,I found this article worked for me,I still use socks with cat litter in as well just buy cat litter with silica in it as it absorbs better

<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">https://www.carbibles.com/remove-mold-from-car</span>/

Ha, mine is a focus too, estate but the hatchback suffers the same problem.

JoshieBudd · Post by **JoshieBudd** » Tue Jan 28, 2020 9:41 pm

Thank you all for your replies, I'll make sure to consider everything!