Lady Mettle

Hi. I have a 1996 Honda Civic that gets water on the floor by the console on the front passenger's side of the car when it rains. We can't figure out where the water is coming from. Does anyone here know what the problem is and what I need to do to fix it?

Thanks!

civic402lx

Moonroof on your car?
check all drain tube for clog

Lady Mettle

I don't have a moonroof. The drain holes next to the passenger door were clear. I'll look for more drain holes.

CandyRedRC46

This is a pretty common issue. I had it and fixed it in my integra. The Front windshield wiper cowl has a gasket / weather stripping that runs along the back side of it. over time, this gasket dry rots and can allow water to get past. If enough water gets past and piles up faster than it can drain out, it can make it into the air conditioner vent intake. This is a really easy fix. You can either buy a brand new windshield cowl that will come with its own brand new weather strip perfectly placed and glued on. Or you can get creative and waste a bunch of time scraping off the old gasket and try and finagle a new gasket on there. As you can tell, I dicked around with trying to make some home depot weather striping work, gave up and just bought a new cowl lol.

The other thing you can do while you're in there is there is a metal flap in front of the a/c vent intake. You can bend that back a few degrees, so if any water makes it past the weather strip, it will run off the flap and down into the drainage channel, instead of being funneled into your air conditioner....

CandyRedRC46

You see that little foam strip running across the backside of the cowl? That has dried up and gone bad, allowing water to enter the cabin via the AC air intake.

CandyRedRC46

Another issue I had on my integra was the taillight gaskets. (I am not sure if this is an issue for EK civics...)

Basically water would make its way into the trunk, through the taillights, fill up the spare tire well and then slosh forward, whenever I got on the brakes hard.
To fix this, I sealed up the taillights with black RTV along the tops and sides (leaving the bottom unsealed).
Then I drilled three small holes in the bottoms of the taillights, so any water that got in could easily drain out.
Finally I cleaned up the mating surfaces and installed the taillights with new oem taillight gaskets.

jdblock

I fixed this by parking my car in the garage.

But really, I'm going to have to do this to my hatch. If I had known, I would have fixed this 2 years ago.

Lady Mettle

jdblock,
LOL. I've temporarily "fixed" the problem by parking my car in the garage too.

Lady Mettle

CandyRedRC46,
Thanks for the info and pics of the cowl and the water in the trunk issue. I'll take a look at the cowl. Trying to fix it with Home Depot weather strip or caulk would have been my first step at fixing the water leak from the cowl. I also have a little water in the trunk. The carpet is wet over the spare tire but it's not enough water to fill the spare tire well yet. That was the next mystery leak I was going to investigate and fix after I fixed the water leak in the passenger's side of the car.

civic402lx

Your trunk leak could come through the plastic clip that the bumper clip onto. Both side of the bumper. Clean it up and silicone around the edge of the clip.
prior to doing that. Empty the trunk. Then fold the seat down get a lamp, crawl inside the trunk.
have someone run the garden hosefrom the windshield down. Dont spray the windshield from behind. Place the hose on top of the roof and let it come dosn the windshield. You will find your trunk leak that way.