Greetings,
My wife and I recently purchased a CPO'd 2004 XC90 for her to drive to work. Up until the past couple weeks the vehicle has been trouble free. However, the morning after a particularly strong thunderstorm we noticed water in the drivers side footwell. A search of Swedespeed turned up several threads on the topic and the culprit seemed to be either a clogged line or elbow.
We called our local dealer and scheduled an appointment. Towards the end of the conversation the service advisor stated that it might not be covered under warranty and that it could "get expensive". This of course made me angry so I decided to tackle the job myself. After completing the job I decided to make a quick "how-to" as I hadn't found specific instructions on here. If this is a double post please feel free to delete.
Overview:
As water collects on the lip surrounding the sunroof it evacuates itself through two small drains, one on the front portion of the drivers side and one on the front portion of the passenger side. These drains are routed through either a-pillar via a rubber hose attached to a 90 degree elbow exiting the vehicle in the approximate location of the side view mirrors. From there it drains straight down exiting near the front mudflaps.
Testing procedure:
In order to ensure the drain was clogged I opened the sunroof and poured a small amount of water in the vicinity of the drain. The picture below shows its location.
After pouring, the water failed to drain, indicating a clog at some point. From there I went about removing the a-pillar cover in order to check the drain line/elbow.
To begin you'll first want to remove the covers for the two 10mm bolts holding the grab handle to the a-pillar. There is little gap to work with and if you're not careful you'll scratch the plastic. A plastic bone tool might work but I went with a razor blade as it was all I had. I would recommend gently prying from the side. As you can see from the pic both covers are connected to the handle via a small piece of plastic.
After both covers are off you can remove the two 10mm bolts. After removal you'll be looking at this.
Now you can pull the a-pillar cover off of the vehicle. It is held in place via three plastic clips and should pull off easily. After removal you will be able to see the rubber drain line.
Once the drain tube was in sight I could see water leaking around the base of the drain tube where it meets the 90 degree elbow pictured below.
This piece simply pulls out and once it's free you can slide the drain tube out. The elbow by itself is pictured below.
As you can see from the pic there was a ton of debris stuck inside the elbow.
I blew compressed air through the elbow which quickly removed the dirt and while off blew air through the drain tube to ensure it was clear(which it was). After cleaning, I reinstalled the elbow and drain tube and poured more water through the drain. At this point the water ran through easily and drained through the bottom of the vehicle in the proper location(pictured below).
Overall this was very simple and took maybe 20 minutes start to finish for both sides. Although the passenger side wasn't leaking yet removal showed a partial clog in the elbow which could have caused problems later on down the road. I hope this helps a bit please let me know if you have any questions.
regards,
Matt
Modified by saffron98 at 8:59 PM 7-30-2008
My wife and I recently purchased a CPO'd 2004 XC90 for her to drive to work. Up until the past couple weeks the vehicle has been trouble free. However, the morning after a particularly strong thunderstorm we noticed water in the drivers side footwell. A search of Swedespeed turned up several threads on the topic and the culprit seemed to be either a clogged line or elbow.
We called our local dealer and scheduled an appointment. Towards the end of the conversation the service advisor stated that it might not be covered under warranty and that it could "get expensive". This of course made me angry so I decided to tackle the job myself. After completing the job I decided to make a quick "how-to" as I hadn't found specific instructions on here. If this is a double post please feel free to delete.
Overview:
As water collects on the lip surrounding the sunroof it evacuates itself through two small drains, one on the front portion of the drivers side and one on the front portion of the passenger side. These drains are routed through either a-pillar via a rubber hose attached to a 90 degree elbow exiting the vehicle in the approximate location of the side view mirrors. From there it drains straight down exiting near the front mudflaps.
Testing procedure:
In order to ensure the drain was clogged I opened the sunroof and poured a small amount of water in the vicinity of the drain. The picture below shows its location.
After pouring, the water failed to drain, indicating a clog at some point. From there I went about removing the a-pillar cover in order to check the drain line/elbow.
To begin you'll first want to remove the covers for the two 10mm bolts holding the grab handle to the a-pillar. There is little gap to work with and if you're not careful you'll scratch the plastic. A plastic bone tool might work but I went with a razor blade as it was all I had. I would recommend gently prying from the side. As you can see from the pic both covers are connected to the handle via a small piece of plastic.
After both covers are off you can remove the two 10mm bolts. After removal you'll be looking at this.
Now you can pull the a-pillar cover off of the vehicle. It is held in place via three plastic clips and should pull off easily. After removal you will be able to see the rubber drain line.
Once the drain tube was in sight I could see water leaking around the base of the drain tube where it meets the 90 degree elbow pictured below.
This piece simply pulls out and once it's free you can slide the drain tube out. The elbow by itself is pictured below.
As you can see from the pic there was a ton of debris stuck inside the elbow.
I blew compressed air through the elbow which quickly removed the dirt and while off blew air through the drain tube to ensure it was clear(which it was). After cleaning, I reinstalled the elbow and drain tube and poured more water through the drain. At this point the water ran through easily and drained through the bottom of the vehicle in the proper location(pictured below).
Overall this was very simple and took maybe 20 minutes start to finish for both sides. Although the passenger side wasn't leaking yet removal showed a partial clog in the elbow which could have caused problems later on down the road. I hope this helps a bit please let me know if you have any questions.
regards,
Matt
Modified by saffron98 at 8:59 PM 7-30-2008