How do I fix wet front floormat on passenger side?

[azw]

Howdy,

My wife showed me tonight that there was a good 1/2" of water in the front passenger foot well of her 2002 Prius. It seems to be fresh water, not antifreeze.

We've had lots of rain recently, but it didn't rain tonight when I went for a test drive, and more water appeared. More telling, I think, is that we've just now begun using the air conditioning. I'm guessing that's the problem.

I've read that other cars have a faulty drain for A/C condensate, so maybe that's what's wrong here, too.

Does anyone know how to fix this? I don't see where the water is coming from. Where is the drain line?

[naterprius]

Blow compressed air (high pressure) up into the drain tube. The dealer can do this for you...

I don't know where it is exactly, but it's the one under the passenger side that's dripping water (very slowly for you!) when the A/C is running...

Nate

[azw]

Hi, Nate, I think I heard Click & Clack suggest using compressed air on the drain, too. I wonder where the material forming the clog goes? Maybe once it's packed into a dense blob, it's less likely to move back into the tube after you blow it out?

[naterprius]

You don't want to stick anything up in there that might damage the tube or the evaporator. Ideally, would be best to blow the other direction... now that I think about it, perhaps a vacuum on the end of the hose might work? This might just collapse the hose, however.

Anyway, the water gathers in an area that is about 1 or two cubic feet. It doesn't take a lot of gunk to clog a 1/4" diameter hole. Mostly what happens when you blow compressed air up the hose is the gunk breaks up into small pieces which are then flushed out by the gallon of water trapped behind it.

A little ozium in the air intake will kill off any mold that may have grown in there.

By the way, more often than not the gunk turns out be a spider and some webbing or an eggsack.

Nate

[azw]

Thanks for your advice, Nate. You are so right! When I looked into the black drain tube, I could see something white that looked like an insect's work, a spider's nest probably. I poked at this with a wire to remove it and a trickle of water came out. Then I blew the drain tube with compressed air and a torrent came out. I didni't realize that so much water was stored in there!

In case anyone else has to deal with this, I'll detail what's involved.

Location in the car
There is a black rubber tube that you can see come down from somewhere in the center console to a hole in the floor on the passenger's side.

Location under the car
Under the car, the tube pokes out no more than 1". It appears a few inches toward the front of the car from the flat area of the passenger's floor pan. It's just behind a ~5/8" black solid beam that I assume is part of the suspension. You can miss the drain because it's behind that bar. The drain is about 4-6" to the passenger's side from the exhaust system and just in toward the center from four black metal gas (?) lines.

[naterprius]

No problem! It brings back memories of days at the dealership. The funny part was, some people couldn't understand where the water came from.

I lived in Michigan where the humidity was around 90% many days of the summer. A/C systems in Michigan rarely actually cooled the car; they would just dry the air, which felt good anyway. As long as a spider hadn't moved in, that is.

Nate