The Great ES300 River

Okay, so my car got a little wet when I took it on a road trip recently. I looked down, after about 50 miles with the AC on, and there was water dripping onto my foot from the AC vent. I thought, OK, it's fine, just a little condensation. 100 miles later, I looked at my floor mat and it had a puddle on it and I started getting suspicious. After 150 miles, I lifted the floor mat and found my floor COVERED in water.

So, to fix the problem, I decided that I would lift up the carpet and source out the problem. Enjoy.

Look how disgusting this interior was. I swear, if you didn't know the car you'd think I did this to the car myself. :(

Aright people. Let me begin by giving you a tutorial on how to rip up one side of your car. The same steps apply to the driver side, and although I did the driver side first, I documented the Passenger side's disassembly only.

To begin removing the carpet from your car, you need to remove the seats.
Both of your seat sits on four mounts, each of which are covered by this poorly photographed beige things.

The ones that you just saw were from the front of the seat, there are two in the back as well, but the steps to remove them are all the same. Take a slotted screwdriver and tape the tip with electric tape.
After you tape the tip of your screwdriver, you can pry off the beige seat mount covers. Place the tip of the screwdriver in between the carpet and your mount cover, wiggle the screwdriver back and forth with a lot of force, but be careful not to bend the covers. Once you're finished with this, you should have four of these.

Remove the four bolts shown in the picture with a 14mm socket.

Pull the seat back, now that it's unbolted from the chassis. Remove the connector on the bottom that gives LIFE to the electrical seat!!!

I found A WHOLLEEE LOTTA MONEY

Here's a look at the partially stripped interior with backseat.

DirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirtyDirty

To lift the front part of your carpet up, remove the panels...
Reach under your glove box and twist off this little, plastic, black bolt. It's threaded.

Gently wiggle the panel piece until it comes off, and the black piece under your glove box (shown in the picture) should come right off.

Remove the door frame plastic by, again, prying at it lightly by hand.

And remove this little Pioneer Electrical Unit. My stereo has been shorting out recently, and I think I know why. All of this wonderful water has been getting into this Pioneer Electrical Unit.

And your lower pillar cover.

And then your back seat. (P.S. You may just pull up on the seat bottom to remove it. I've done it a million times, so it's no big deal.

There you go! You can pull up your carpet and expose your car's floor. Mine looks less like a floor and more like a river, the great ES300 RIVER.

The clips under the backseat must be removed as well.

Stay tuned for the horror show! :)

Most importantly of this whole process...you know, buying a car and fixing it up, is making sure you recieve profit.

WHOLE LOT MORE MONEY!!!

Rags to Riches

Rings and Bling

Since the inside of the car smelled like moldy popcorn (thanks to the wet underside of my carpet) I took some bleach and did

this,

just to clean up the bacteria. ;)

Here are some tissues.

__________________________________________


I ended up putting the driver seat back in without the carpet to source out the leak. It was driving me nuts! And, just to clear things up, my Lexus didn't even stink with all of that stagnant water under the carpet. Pretty impressive huh? Just goes to show you, if you want to destroy a Lexus, you need to do a lot....and these people did. >:(

Here's the seat installation and pics of the leak source.

This is where the leak came from. When I turned the AC on, water dripped out of the cracks where unit was assembled.

Driver Side

Passenger Side

Stay tuned! I will fix this!