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lot of water on front floor, passenger side

31K views 14 replies 10 participants last post by  Jtbrehmny 
#1 ·
Hi,

I think I probably have an air conditioner problem in our 2002 Prius, but I'm not sure. There is a lot of water on the floor on the passenger side in the front. Maybe 1/2". I've bailed it out twice now. We've just started using the A/C, so I'm betting that's the culprit. What do I look for? Is there something clogged, or...?
 
#2 ·
I don't know where the water's coming from, but I can help you bail it out: there is a rubber plug in the floor boards which can be removed to allow the water to drain out the bottom.

Kneel next to the passenger's door and look under the car. You'll see a black rubber disk about 2 inches diameter. By pushing in the edges with your fingernails, you can stuff the whole plug up into the car and wiggle it sideways out of the way.

When the carpet is dry, wiggle it sideways (from underneath the car) back over the hole and push on the carpet (from inside the car) to get it down into the hole again.

I believe there are four such plugs: one under each person's feet. I found the one in the backseat when a leaky water jug flooded the back floor.

Douglas (2002 Silver, Wisconsin, USA)
 
#3 ·
I don't know the specifics of the Prius, but in most cars this indicates that water condensing on the evaporator is not draining out of the car, so you have a plugged hose somewhere. This hose could be accessible from either inside or outside the car; not sure where on the Prius. Depending on how hard it is to get to, it can be cheap or a bear to fix.
 
#4 ·
Thanks to both of you for your help.

I think I have it fixed. Here's 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.

When I looked into the black drain tube, I could see something white that looked like an insect's work. I poked 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.
 
#8 ·
This is EXACTLY what I needed to read.

Emptied more than a cup of clear water, likely condensating from A/C, but didn't actually find anything wrong (no barrier, no damage, no foreign material).

Now:
- After inserting & wiggling the wire, how to I keep this drainage from clogging?

- How vigorously do I insert my straightened coat-hanger?

- What's at the top end of this drainage?

Thanks,
- Gary

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.

When I looked into the black drain tube, I could see something white that looked like an insect's work. I poked 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.
 
#5 ·
Wasps like to make nests in the ends of hoses. I used to get them in every friggin hose end in my shop if I left them unplugged. I learned to jam pencils, bolts, anything in the holes. You might hit it with a shot of insect repellent. but be careful, most of those products are not kind to plastics.
 
#9 ·
I think I probably have an air conditioner problem in our 2002 Prius
...
lot of water on the floor on the passenger side
...
just started using the A/C, so I'm betting that's the culprit.
Yep, exactly my situation.

1) A few msgs later in this thread, there's terrific & useful instructions how to drain the passenger-seat's floor compartment of its accumulated water. It was very satisfying, did help, but obviously that's not the ORIGIN of the problem.

2) Now I've witnessed the incoming draining leak. It's warm, clear (& evidently just condensed) water dripping from a black box/cover against the midline/central wall of the passenger's foot-compartment ceiling.

I'm hoping for advice how I might open what must be some kinked/clogged A/C condenser's drain, on passenger's side of the front-most wall in the compartment.

Seems like I'm going to need to take it in, unless one of our user-wizards can teach me what to disassemble.

Thanks,
- Gary
 
#10 ·
Yep, exactly my situation.

1) A few msgs later in this thread, there's terrific & useful instructions how to drain the passenger-seat's floor compartment of its accumulated water. It was very satisfying, did help, but obviously that's not the ORIGIN of the problem.

2) Now I've witnessed the incoming draining leak.
Now I found a video that showed where to find the hose that drains the A/C condensate through the floor, and when I fiddled with it, earned more than a cup of clear water gushing through.

Watch this (sorry, it's in Russian & so is Closed Captioning... but very easy to follow).

New question is why I can't explain (& fix) the cause for the hose to fail to empty on its own.

From the video, it's also a good idea to change the indoor cabin air-filter, but surely that's irrelevant to the drainage issue (no?)

Thanks,
- G
 
#11 · (Edited)
Problem: Water on passenger floor board after rain (or maybe car wash). 2013 Prius C and three year owner in Los Angeles.
Regular floor, mat on top, then weather tech finally realized the flood! Who knows for how long.
End of March 2019: Dried up with toweling after last rain, then rained again and problem back. Fixes (temporary): Will repeat toweling again. Try to find 2” hole on floorboard, drain pipe from AC (inside cabin filter replaced by Toyota 2019)
Where is water coming from? Windshield? Inside engine? Drains from windows n sunroof?
I am NOT mechanic, just read and trying to think like water and path of least resistance.
 
#13 ·
azw
One other cause, rather than a bug or nest is mold. Either that or when you used the compressor to blow the blockage clean, you also inadvertently blew whatever it was causing the plug into the venting system. That said, when water starts to condense the water will slowly push whatever it was you blew into that area back to the hole that the tube is connected to (at the top of the hose). Eventually it will probably just create another blockage over and over again. You might try using a wet vac to try and suck the water and whatever is blockage out rather than pushing it back in. If there was a lot of mold growth up there (from it sitting full of water for a long time) and the ventilation box may have to be removed to remove all the mold or other junk that may be down there. If there is other stuff up there, like leaves and twigs down there, you may discover that either the ventilation filter, behind the glove box) may either be damaged or missing and should be replaced as well.
 
#15 ·
Hi,

I think I probably have an air conditioner problem in our 2002 Prius, but I'm not sure. There is a lot of water on the floor on the passenger side in the front. Maybe 1/2". I've bailed it out twice now. We've just started using the A/C, so I'm betting that's the culprit. What do I look for? Is there something clogged
That's for this post, I had this happening in my 2015 Prius C Two. I found the drain house inside and gently squeezed it with a downward pressure, it apparently forwarded the cliff out and immediately started draining out.
 
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