Car is a 96 Legacy Outback. I've searched several times for this and the best I have come up with is that the drain for the AC is clogged. So three times I have pulled the rug up, taken out the computer, took the rubber drain hose off and shoved a wire and compressed air up that tube. The bugger is CLEAN. I've turned on the AC and the fan on high and feel a steady stream of cold air come out of the tube. Reassembled the whole thing after drying out the rug and tonight the thing is wet again. We did have 2 1/2 inches of rain today while the car was parked outside at work so I am guessing it is rain water. Is it possible the windshield is leaking??? Water draining inside the car from the defroster intake???? Anyone have an idea where I can start looking????

 

This is really starting to become a PITA. I really do not want to have Weddes Auto pull the dash cause I am sure that is not a cheap project.....

Get out the hose.

(No, not those kinda hoes. The water hose. )

Open it up on the windshield for about 5 minutes then crawl under the dash and see if you can see water dripping or running anywhere.

 

The cowl area under the wipers often gets clogged up with leaves and doesn't drain properly. You can try cleaning that out and see if it makes a difference.

Will do. I did another search and came up with a thread from 2005 that recomends removing the pass. wheel well and cleaning the cowl drain there also. I'll try anything once.....

does yours have a sunroof, not sure where those drains are routed but might want to check those too if yours has them.

No sunroof Gary.

Check that off the list of possibles.

A kind of odd one, that I've seen cause problems in cars that live on dirt/gravel roads or park under trees, the drain holes in the bottoms of the doors can plug up, and water will fill up and spill over the inner panel of the door and run down the kick panel into the carpet. And they're easy to check, just stick a straw or something into the drains to dislodge anything that might be in the way.

Oh I know about the weep holes in the doors alright. When I bought the car it came with 4 used doors cause the doors were rotted up about 2 inches from the weep holes being clogged. I am leaning toward the drains clogged because of this. I'll find out Sunday morning when I rip into it again. I just put the rug back after drying it overnight and the weather is supposed to be dry until then.

 

I'll let you all know what I find Sunday afternoon.

I have a 96 Outback and am not sure about where the door weep holes are. Anyone have a pic or care to give a description? I see some holes in the bottom corner at the fender/door interface on the inside of the car. Is this them? Am interested in the original poster's conclusion.

Goof,

 

Open up your doors and look on the bottom, you will see a hole in the metal that leads right into the area where your window rolls down into. Those are the weep holes. They get leaf debris and dirt in there and it clogs them up. Rust starts and will rot the bottoms off the door in no time at all.

This is what I did on Sunday morning. I removed the cowl cover and looked in the space for a lot of debris. Nothing big just some seeds. I then removed the pass. wheel and the plastic inner wheel well and since I did not know where the drain was took the garden hose to the space under cowl and washed out the space. At first the flow was slow and then it picked up with a lot of fine dirt coming out from the cowl space. So I am assuming that the drian was plugged up. I also removed the fan from under the dash and checked that space for dirt. Some seeds and dirt but not near what was in the cowl space. I put it all back together and now have to wait for a good rain storm again, which might be a while cause the temp here this morning was 25 degrees and snowing.

Come on SPRING.....