Condensation Inside Vehicle

Hi Friendly,
Yes, printer/ copier, normal paper will do.
Yes, multiple times, different spots/areas throughout the panels.
Yes, you should not be able to remove the paper once the panel is closed.
Good hunting.

 

I noticed the same thing on my Gen 2 after getting rear ended. It was at least 2" of water in there. At the time I thought it might be because car was damaged, but now that I think of it, it wasn't raining that much at all and no carpets inside the car were ever wet. Only whole with spare tire in it.

 

Get some paper towels and place a strip of them at the bottom of the doors on the inside. Then drive thru the car wash and immediately check the paper towels to see if any are wet. That would show if your doors or which one is giving trouble.

You might be able to remove the bottom of the back seat to see the floor of the car in that area. Any water migrating from the rear of the car would have to pass there and should be visible. I would not like the idea of removing the interior to pull up the carpet to look there. Perhaps you could pay a mechanic to put the car on a lift and remove the bottom panel look for missing or damaged seam sealer or missing/damaged grommets?

 

Salvaged Title?
Well...then that kind of changes everything, from the perspective that it is now very likely the vehicle at some point was pretty severely damaged and "reconstructed" which means the moisture could be coming from any number of spots, gaps, or not quite correctly repaired areas.
The OP can still and should still search for the root cause, but with the revelation that this is a "Salvaged Title" vehicle, the scope of what could be the root cause becomes much, much wider.

Does any information about the vehicles history exist? What caused the "Salvaged Title" ? If you could get some idea as to what accident it survived...rear end collision, side swiped, front end damage? It might help focus on areas to look closer at.
But really now? It's going to take looking at nearly every possibility.

 

My opinion...and it's only opinion, is once a vehicle has suffered a major impact...everything and anything could be slightly off. Since you are experiencing a problem both overall-condensation, and specifically-rear carpet, hopefully you can track down how water is reaching the rear carpet area.
If enough moisture is entering to cause the carpet to actually be wet, that is also simultaneously enough moisture to probably cause increased condensation as a whole.
I think all the "hunting" advice given is great. But it still might not be an easy task. You basically have the symptom-moisture and condensation, and about only 1 clue. The rear carpet is getting wet. Hunting back from that one clue is a challenge. Good Luck.

 

One thing may help. Their are air flaps on each side of the car, they are for air to exit after running by the HV Battery. The flaps are located opposite the rear tires. They may be damaged or stuck open.

 

As for your door leak, you may want to adjust the door strikers in slightly. This is most likely going to take car of the leaks at the tops of the doors (see video).
The tail light assembly is mounted from the inside of the interior trim with nuts that have sealing compound. You’ll have to reseal those.

 

Sometimes the drains for the A/C get plugged up and the water ends up in side on the front floor.
It also causes the windshield to steam up under the right conditions.

 

I replied with that being a possible issue already, in one ear out the other.

 

It needs to be moved IN as explained in the video. If the door is not sealing at the top, it’s probably because the door it is not tight up against the seal.

 

Bingo.

Where was the damage?

Bottom line is if there is moisture in your interior after sitting in the sun you have water inside the car somewhere. Thats bad as there is alot of electronics in the cabin and everything will corrode quite quickly.

AC leak is easy to find. Park in the sun roll up the windows put the ac on max cold and look for ac condensate dripping under the car right behind front passenger wheel about a foot in. Should be dumping alot of water on the ground. If no puddle its leaking onto the floor under the glovebox and then travels under the floor till it gets pooled in the back seat passenger floor compartment as its low there.
Nasty stuff.