Taste to see if water or coolant

 

Well, first you need to open your sunroof and pour a small amount of water in each corner of the sunroof and see if they all drain out below the car. If that occurs, then it's likely not coming from there.
Repairs are easy in that you unscrew the oh sh!t handle, the mirror and the pillar trim, and reach your hand in there, disconnect, and clean or replace, being careful to pull the direction of the barb and not crossways or you'll snap it off. There is a sticky on this too.

Unless you live in a high humidity place and you drive 8-10 hours a day, it's not likely the AC drain, but you can pull back the passenger footwell carpet next to the transmission tunnel and pull out the white plug and check it for cloggin. Easy disconnect, flush and reconnect.

Finally, the other source of water is usually the heatercore - it possess orings and plastic clamps that connect it to the pipes that go out to the enginebay. It is unfortunately a common thing. Pull out your glovebox and look for blue residue on the clamps. Usually they leak at high pressure and then start leaking more and more as thermal cycles continue to occur and you drive the car. You can also just pop your hood and look at your coolant reservoir to see if it's dropped any.
Repairs vary - some people replace the orings and clamps, I couldn't get mine to reseat correctly, so I took a dremel and cut the lips off both ends and reconnected them with some (5/8 or 3/4"?) heaterhose and some hose clamps - it lasts longer than the stock design and won't fry your CEM if you don't notice it in the future again.

Like sklooner said, taste it to see if it's sweet - if it's sweet, it's coolant. If it's not, it's water and it's coming in from somewhere.

 

Usually the Smell of Anti Freeze is so Strong - it's easy to Tell it the Heater Core ..

Sun_Roof , If You Park Your Volvo Outside mostly ~

 

Check sunroof drains

Hello all,

I keep searching the forum and get different answers, my rear right (passenger) floorboard is SOAKED in water, I dried it out the other day and yet again it's soaked. I can hear the sound of running water inside the car. I've heard it's either the AC drain or the sunroof, I'm fairly certain it's not the sunroof as it hasn't rained recently and the water doesn't seem to be rain water. Is there a way to tell and how would I go about repairing it?

Thanks,
Phillip

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Been here, done this, have the t-shirt. This is common when the drain tube for the sunroof (behind the a-pillar trim) has either come out of the drain or has become plugged. It drains down the front a-pillar and ends up in the rear passenger floor due to gravity and that being the lowest point in that floorboard. Makes lots of swooshing water sounds as you drive too because of the channels of water in the floor pan.

When you "dried it out"..... how did you do it? Towel? Or did you pull back the carpet and vacuum out the 2 gallons of water that are in there? There's a very very thick pad between the carpet and the floor pan. There is easily a gallon or more of water in there and unless you pulled up the trim and pulled the carpet back to wet-dry vac it out.....you didn't truly dry it out.

The first couple videos here on YouTube give you the how-to to quickly check/fix the drain tube: [url]https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=s40+sunroof+drain [/URL]

 

right rear sunroof drain would be my guess(if v50 it runs down c pillar to behind rear seat). like mentioned, try pouring a little water in sunroof tray toward back. you should see it run out to the ground within a couple seconds near the right rear wheel

 

Pull the A-pillar trim. It's quick and easy. 99% that the drain tube has separated from the rubber exit point to the outside. It's a quick fix to push it back in. There are a ton of different "fixes" for it to ensure that it doesn't happen again. YMMV...

Once that's done, pull your interior...you'll need at least one day, maybe more, for it to completely dry. The front seats are an easy removal (4 main bolts, the air-bag and seat-electrics connection underneath, and then release the seatbelt from the side).

Then, start removing the carpet pieces. It's not that hard and there's only a few connectors, and the door-sill trim pieces. The rest is just form-fit and slides under the interior trim pieces.

You will not believe how much water can collect back there until you see the amount of open-cell foam insulation that is down there. I literally pulled 1.5 gallons out of my floor pan, and squeezed even more out of the foam while helping it to dry in the sun...

If you're in a humid climate (or it's just cold and wintry, you may need to leave the carpet out for a while. You can reinstall the seats while it dries, so that you can drive the car. Just expect it to be louder and more resonant while you drive.

Lastly, on the right-hand side of the center console, you'll have uncovered a plastic drain tube (two white ends and a black, accordion-style connector pipe. That's the A/C drain tube from the condenser. Pull the black tube off and clean it and the white elbows out. They are most likely filled with decaying pieces of grass, leaves, pine needles, etc. That can cause as much flooding as a disconnected sunroom drain, even when it's not raining.

Once the interior is dry, the under-carpet foam is dry, your sunroof drain tubes are connected, and the A/C drain is cleared and reassembled, put it all back together again and enjoy...

Some of the water left, after I had already cleared out a bucketful and then remembered to take a picture:

The A/C drain that should be cleaned... Volvo part # 30630756:

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A quick note to add to this as I've read in many other threads. Make sure to disconnect the battery before pulling the seats out and do not reconnect that battery until the seats are reinstalled and connected to the wiring harness. Otherwise you'll end up with an SRS warning light that will need a dealer tool to reset because of the airbags in the seats. Just got done with this same process on my V50.

 

Ebones, let us know what you find. Even if it hasn't rained recently, the water may have been building up in the 1 1/2" of foam under the carpet for a L-o-oo-oo-n-g time. (My experience is that the back drains [there are four, one at each corner] are much more direct and less likely to clog.) Water in the back is no indication as to which water source is causing the flooding - front and rear are not divided.

 

Drill a hole [emoji16]

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Hey sorry for the late reply, I’m going to start looking at it this weekend, it definitely is not coolant. My plan is to check the sunroof first, then proceed by pulling out the seats (being sure to disconnect the battery) and looking under the carpet for the exact source and fix accordingly. Is there anything I’m missing?

EDIT: I also should add that I’ve already done both sunroof drains on the front with some Home Depot tubing. When I dried it out earlier I used some towels and a blower fan to get out as much water as I could, I don’t have access to a shop vac at the moment. I do live in a pretty hot and humid climate (Central FL) and I always run the AC. Thank you guys for your help!

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Quick update here's some pictures of the interior fully apart, there's even some moisture on the rear driver side
Carpet:

Insides pulled apart:

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Sadly I’ve had this issue too. In my case the passenger front sunroof vent fitting had come undone and was leaking down. And because Ford/Volvo was “wise” enough to run all the wiring unsealed under the carpet the passenger airbag light kept coming on due to a poorly insulated wire.

So definitely check all the sunroof vents; pull the seara and carpets, and dry her out first.

 

I had this exact issue and thr rear drain had popped out of the gromet that allowed it to run outside of the cabin, so the water was just running over the metal seat frame and into the rear footwell. The drain is behind the plastic panel just behind the door.

If you search my posts you should see the photos.

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Do note: if you are flooded on the rear, most likely you are flooded on the front vice versa as the whole front/back side shares the same floor. Only the driver and passenger sides are separate. My carpet pictured here as I am leaving it for dry. Water went all the way through the back! You can see here that water can be channeled through underneath the openings from the cross metal seat bracket, as it did for me when my driver side A-pillar was clogged.

 

Picked my car up from the Dealership after a service and the driver and rear footwells were filled with water. The passenger side was a little wet. The dealer told me I must have a leak or a clogged drain. Checked all drains, seals and coolant. At this point all I can conclude is the dealer left a window or the sun roof open during a heavy PNW rainstorm. What a challenge trying to dry out the car. I’m trying not to remove the seats.

 

You MUST remove the seat and carpet for drying otherwise your car WILL rust!