Drying car interior out

FeFiDoh

FeFiDoh

FeFiDoh

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Joined
17 Aug 2005
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Swindon
After having a leak in my car which fingers crossed is now fixed I need to dry the drivers foot well out. Anyone with tips on doing this? Carpet out seems to be the consensus but that appears to be a real pain due to the console and maybe having to cut it(2004 Corsa)? Will a wet/dry vacuum do the trick? Not sure how much it will remove as the padding holds most of the water and not the actual carpet itself.

I live on the main road so getting power to the car is a bit of a no no really, would probably take it to my parents where I can park near the house to get power there. Can hire a vac quite cheap so this was my first plan.
 
Nah a wet and dry vac will only really lift up any moisture that's at the top of the pile. You could always try it, might help a little but not going to massively improve things.

Best bet if you can't get power to put a dehumidifier in and don't want to remove carpets it's lots of silica gel and lots of patience
 
I had a problem where a friend left my window down and I didn't realise. The car was sat in a storm overnight and all of the passenger seat and footwell was drenched.

I used a Vax vacuum cleaner to draw out any excess moisture, as well as freshening the seat and floor up. I then put an ice cream tub of salt in the car when not in use to absorb any moisture (you could also use silica gel if you can get hold of it). When using the car, I had the heaters on full in the footwell to help out. Sorted it within a week.

I tried not using the Vax first, but the Vax worked wonders.
 
Funnily enough we have a dehumidifier we are borrowing from the letting agency after some plaster work we had done if only I could get power to it easily and leave it running would work a treat! Even if I could get power to the garage the roof leaks in there and would need to run extension from the house with windows that all open upwards so with this wind would probably be pulled open and house soaked instead.

Where did you get the Vax from? I did see them mentioned else where and Amazon(can I say them?) have a bunch of silica gel products.
 
FeFiDoh said:
Funnily enough we have a dehumidifier we are borrowing from the letting agency after some plaster work we had done if only I could get power to it easily and leave it running would work a treat! Even if I could get power to the garage the roof leaks in there and would need to run extension from the house with windows that all open upwards so with this wind would probably be pulled open and house soaked instead.

Where did you get the Vax from? I did see them mentioned else where and Amazon(can I say them?) have a bunch of silica gel products.
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Our family has one but I think you can rent them from B&Q. If you clean your seats whilst you're at it you'll be disgusted by the amount of dirt it draws out of them!
 
I've been suffering leaks in my car recently, I've tried to get the majority of the moisture from using a towel to soak it up but then on my journey to work use the aircon and heat to dry out the air directed into the foot well?
 
Towels in the foot well changed every time they get damp then newspaper and repeat. Then go with the de humidifier to finish off the job.
 
My car's just sitting on my parents' drive and when I was back for xmas I noticed a ridiculous about of moisture inside on the front window. Smelt musty too.
I'm going to get some silica gel packs from Amazon - how many do you think i need in the car?
Couple of 100g ones overkill?
 
Okay so I spoke to the parents and am taking my car over tomorrow afternoon and leaving it sat on their driveway which is right outside the house where I should be able to leave the dehumidifier going for a while. May as well abuse the fact I have the agencies dehumidifier sat here, hopefully it will sort it.
 
I'll say this, you will need a LOT of silica gel. We bin lots of it at work so I saved loads and lobbed them in the car. Made no difference at all to the damp/window misting.
 
I've tried everything from Salt, Rice to Silica Gel - can't budge the damp. Think it might work better if I can evaporate the moisture with sunshine but well... yeah
 
Clarkey said:
I'll say this, you will need a LOT of silica gel. We bin lots of it at work so I saved loads and lobbed them in the car. Made no difference at all to the damp/window misting.
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What about two kilos?
I'll get my dad to apply some gummipflege as well.
 
Dehumidifier's work very very well for this, i left a window open in my yaris in very heavy rain and just 1 full day with a dehumidifier and it seemed completely dry.
 
sovietspybob said:
Dehumidifier's work very very well for this, i left a window open in my yaris in very heavy rain and just 1 full day with a dehumidifier and it seemed completely dry.
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What kind of dehumidifier are we talking about here? I'm picturing something like this but presume you mean something like this?
 
Like the first one but not that large is what I will be using. Left it in the bathroom over night when we had to dry walls out and it had turned it self off by morning as it was full. Was kinda amazed how much it managed to draw out for a small unit, in a car which is a much smaller space it should work wonders *fingers crossed*
 
thecremeegg said:
By any chance is your car leaking round the brake servo? ;)
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Of course it is, it's a Corsa C's magic trick!

I just slowly pulled all the sound deadener up and dried in it in the house, its really thick and holds LOADS of water. If it isn't 100% dry you'll see your carpets starting to rot soon enough!

Once it was dry I bought some spray adhesive from B&Q, worked brilliantly got it all back nicely. Don't forget to move the footrest on the left side where your feet are it cracks easily, keep that safe till it's all dry.
 
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