How swampy is your boxster after heavy rain?
 

Mine is coping quite well, clean drains x4, however I swear it feels (smells?) so much more humid than any other car. You guys getting that nasty puff of wet air on that first door opening, after a good rain?

Where does this water get trapped into? in my spare tire? my carpet look and feel dry

I live in a very humid climate, about tops in the US. The rear drains as well as the rear "floor" they sit on is "inside" the cabin. Well hidden behind the roll bar, there is still water wending its way to the drains on the "inside" of the car. That is what I've blamed for high humidity in the car after a rain.

oh thats crap, just had a look and you'r right. Water remains in few puddles behind the plastic window flap, in my car anyway. wtf. That's 12+hrs after that rain... expecting this to cloud my car for the next week then?

Can my cordless drill fix that problem? Don't mind punching a hole in that thing if this can prevent this nasty humidity. Man its not cool

ps: Car always been indoor until last summer, when they kicked us out of the community shed for renovations. First time for me, normally has a cover but I got caught up yesterday. This thing came out of nowhere :/

Can't say. I live in South Florida and my car sits outside. Never had a problem with humidity inside the car.

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The under carpet material is a HUGE sponge.

So if water ever got in there -- I'm sure nearly ever drop has been preserved :-(

Mike

Something surely isn't right. Glad you chip in, was hoping to hear all Boxsters were like that. Not like I've never driven in heavy rain before, happened more than a few times. Maybe different when rain hits it when parked dunno. Man it was torrential.. 2 full hrs of it. Just cleaned the 4x drains with compressed air a year ago, zero blockage there, clean as it should (??)


Thanks for the heads up Mike. Hmm just saw a note from another member/thread mentioning about that sponge being impossible to dry also. That'd be the end...

first thing I did after sniffing that wet dog is reaching for the immob under the driver' seat. That flood/drain problem I've read a lot about. Got lucky... won't happen again

From all the good advice, I think the wife is winning. She goes: just take it for a long ride with the roof down, it'll dry lolll

this poor boxster, from 'dead something' smell caused by unprofessional storage (a few years ago) and just as this problem left me for good, now I have a wet dog smell because I forgot to put the cover on one afternoon. silly car... /rant>

X2. My boxster sat for months in 100f+ degree weather after the interior got wet and it still had tons of water in the insulation. It soaks water in but doesn't let it out

Update and WARNING!
 

That car is all f n wet, just need a coffee before and look for it again. Water came in from the door, the driver's side carpet is wet just below the speaker (the door?!). When you pull the passenger seat, its all wet behind there too. Car is leaving to the indy in a n hour for drying, this guy has a 8,566 Horsewatts Shop Vac there so hope he'll be able to pull up as much as possible.

It feels and smells like an indoor public pool when you open the door. Something completely wrong with this car because I never had a drop coming in during all those years, those days I've driven it in the rain anyway (few times for sure).

20years old seals are self-destructing, drains are shot, both maybe, no idea what it is but I'll update if we ever find out. Watch out for this year's savage weather dearest 97'98 owners :/

Yeah can't say mine has been moist inside. Occasionally I've gotten a few drips here or there but nothing more than below minor. However my Targa leaked like a sieve and I'm fixing that. :D

Wonder if your inner door seal/membrane is torn.

new to the boxster game, but i find mine does better in the rain without the cover? go figure. the cover seems to trap moisture and it causes condensation to form on every surface inside the car. but with out it i just get two loonie sized puddles next to the rear drains. this is sitting in a 3 day constant spring rain.

None. Mine is none swampy even after a heavy rain. It's my DD, and it sees plenty of water throughout the year.

If the door card is wet then the membrane is perished.

Car garage stories
 

Extract of today's visit to my favorite independent Porsche performance garage:

Me: This needs fixing
Indy: why? its 20y/old, just don't leave it parked it in the rain?
Me: That is eventually going to smell bad. Needs fixing
Indy: why? everything is synthetic, do you eat in a Porsche car?!
Me: No. Only has expired human skin, little white dust you know. So can you to dry my car?
Indy: {vomitingsounds} Eh nope, I'll tell you how tough;

Buy a small dehumidifier and let it run in the car for 48hrs with windows & top closed. Make sure you empty the tray often.

Me: Can I place a small heater to create more water in the air? (smart; tapping myself on the shoulder!)
Indy: NO, you'll either electrocute yourself, set the car on fire or both. Mold feeds 100x faster on your disgusting human skin dry dust thing when heat is generated. Run the AC full blast if you can instead.
Me: What else can I do
Indy: get out of my garage and buy skin care products man
Me: hmm k, I'll let you know how it went

me: oh, last question; do most of your customers comes with human skin like me? :D
Indy: {{more vomitingsounds}}

Wroom wroom!

Sound much like what friend Chris said earlier. I'll start with that I guess. I'll get that on the bi-annual gen.porsche.part shopping list :/

Thanks to all for the advice and info

ps: Its a Dehumidifier it needs, not a heater lol

Was your Indy previously a hairdresser??? LOL.
I am certainly happy to hear your Boxster is on the road to recovery. When I first read this thread I was immediately hit with the thought of what a tragic loss it would be to this Forum if you decided you no longer liked this car.
That said I had some water enter below my seat that I got rid of rather quickly by stuffing some paper towels half under the carpet in front of the firewall with free end exposed. This helped to "wick" the water out from below. Couldn't hurt.

Nice one, thanks! His Shop Vac actually did an incredible job already, at least the "inddor swimming pool" puff of wet air is gone. That insulation got soaked behind the passenger seat. Just too much rain for what the drain was able to cope with apparently. This guy an ex-Porsche employee and running his own now. He said the only way Porsche are able to dry our cars is with the dehumidifyer/doors/windows/top closed method. I'll take his word for it ;)

Love that roadster! I like very much my 1.4L Turbo VW also but that Boxster is a much better street toy. Another 10-15 years to go on that Boxster minimum, wouldn't be surprised.

Haha Nine8Six! Thanks for. Funny read!

I keep three micro fiber towels stuffed in the door.

With all this said, what are the best preventative measures we can do to water proof our Box?

It would be nice to have photos of the leakage points.

Keep your drains clean, particularly in those seasons when trees are shedding leaves, flowers, and other debris.

Locations of Drains are well desribed in your manual

I have no issues...Likely because the car has never seen rain....:D

if you have torrential rains in your area and normally park outdoor, my advice is pick a permanent parking spot with this in mind e.g. under a tree, structure. Clean drains or not, heavy rain 'can' overwhelm those miniature size drains near that plastic window. Becomes a game of 'Lucky or Not". Mother nature won this time :/

Promise myself it wont happen again... man, poor car

Perhaps we should install those electric Rule bilge pumps in that area to auto-evacuate any water that accumulates! LOL

The convertible top area has two drains on each side -- there is a foam "bucket" with
a drain hole in the bottom. If the drain hole can't support the volume of water coming into the bucket -- the escape route is over the front of the bucket and down the firewall behind the carpets.

And as has been explained -- the low point in the car stores the immobilizer under the drivers seat, w/o a drain.

One car I purchased had suffered such a fate -- I ended up pulling all the carpet out,
sucking the backside of the carpet where the padding is with a wetvac -- many times.
Then sat the whole assembly out for several weeks to dry -- and still had to wetvac some sections again. Note -- the carpet is such that despite the padding being absolutely soaked -- the top side was bone dry and didn't hint at the swamp contained beneath. So -- I'm not sure the humidifier trick will work -- but it would be far less work!

I eventually won! I even reconditioned the carpets with new carpet paint -- and they looked and smelled great.

Also note, if you have had your convertible top serviced -- it is easy to screw that up and puncture the foam buckets. The arms on each side are perfect spears.

Mike

Nice explanation Mike, thanks. From the look of it we are still learning and enjoying this car. Hard way or less, still fun man :cheers:

Like myself perhaps, you mush have missed the bulletin :/

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02/051496857030.jpg

^ it'd look more real with roof on ;)

Also make sure the steel cables that tension the roof are thread through the little fabric strip on the skirt on the hood. This seems to help the skirt fit over the foam tray. Mine was very wet under carpet when I bought it. Saw this and corrected and bone dry since and this is in Ireland where we know a thing or two about rain. I also used a dehumidifier to dry it out 100%


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Just a quick update on this one

Just got the car back and it is bone dry. As in 'crispy' dry. Not sure if that's a good thing... can picture my seat and dash leather cracking before the next weekend lolll

Thanks to Porsche for the tip! That dehumidifier technique is the way to go. I've rented the unit from a shop that specialize in renting all kinds of tools here instead of buying one, theirs had a drain hose so it made things a tad easier. I've left the car in my mate's garage nearby, set the unit on the passenger's seat, drain-hose coming out from the passenger door. That thing was dripping every 1~2 secs lolll
We had to mask/tape the door frame so to keep the car sealed as best as we could, took 8 days.

I swear the car goes much faster now. Bet there was 12,558 gallons of water trapped in that flooring insulation sponge thingy after all those 20 years.

Anyway, works well. Car is back under its cover. Promised myself this sh&* won't happen again

IMPORTANT: if you place something on your passenger seat for a long period of time, place a flat piece of something to avoid having pressure marks in the seat leather. Hope those two fugly 'holes' will eventually go away man. Caused by the rubber feet of that silly machine :/

Life's hard, learning the hard way, always. Not sure why lollll

@Nine8Six - bit of heat and a nice relaxing massage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llZfIR3KFxs

Finished! Thanks for the link up bud, really helped. Even an idiot could do it. I mean, the removing pressure marks with heat part :D

Took 20min though... 19 of those being me chicken-out, fear of discoloring those old leathers loll Once you give it a good heat, those things spreads evenly. cool stuff

Leaves a mark, but at least looks a tad more natural now loll Thanks again

View pics at www.greatest-idiots.com.cn

The sponges under the carpets are beginning to piss me off. Just when I think my drains are clean and my interior is finally dry, a heavy rain will soak everything up and I have to start from the beginning. Can we just get rid of that spongy insulation? Will it detach from the carpet? What is it good for anyway? Sound deadening? Heat insulation? Has anyone removed it and noted any difference?

EDIT: Then again, maybe the giant sponge does serve a purpose by protecting the immobilizer from getting wet...

That, and noise I would assume. Removing the insulation could well make this little cabin quite noisy. Personally no idea if you can remove this layer, good question.

Let us know if you find out more info

If you want to clean the drains once, then not worry about them getting clogged buy a pair of the 987 vent grill/guard things. They are basically mini gutter guards. Unless the tray fills up with water faster than it can drain or you get a bunch of gunk over the guards they should work well. PN: 987.561.487.00

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps5ugput5y.jpg
Yes you can remove the insulation but it's a very messy situation. I had to use a wire wheel on my grinder to get it off. The noise level can be very loud or not noticeable at all. It all depending on what road surface you're driving on. As for the heat insulation, the HVAC system is so great on these cars I never find it getting too hot or cold.

try this is if you have to park/store outside:

Outdoor CarCapsule

Well I think I found why the left rear area kept getting flooded at the slightest rain:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1497711943.jpg

What a pain in the @$$ it was to fish that little thing out. Had to go from the bottom up and then fish it out of the foam buckets with one finger... without tearing the foam apart. Anyone know if it's a Boxster part or just some randon debri?

Do yourself a favor and get one of these trombone cleaners:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1497712175.jpg

Better than anything else I have tried. Flexible enough to go around tight corners, stiff enough so you can push it without it buckling, and thick enough that you can twist and spin it around. Bend one of the tips on a couple of spots so that the end is slightly and gradually curved. That way when it catches on a ridge or corner you can spin it and the end will free itself. Some drains have tricky corners (front right especially) but with practice you'll find all the tight spots and learn to go around them quickly. Then when the tip comes out under the car pull the whole thing out from underneath. The bristles should leave your drains nice and tidy.

But now I have all seven drains (that I know of) fully working. Let's see how good the perform now...

Never had any condensation in my car but then it was inside a garage or under a Noah fabric cover most of the time. Though I do recall a monsoon where I took the Boxster 100 miles in preference to a 4WD with the best rain tires money could buy. I somehow had more confidence in the Boxster.

That cover also lasted years and kept 10" of snow and an inch of ice off the car successfully. Used a push broom to clear the snow or ice as I wanted out when the roads got passable.

Dunno about indoor condensation, mine was stored indoor for 19 years and never shown signs of that. Covered or not, that car is breathing pretty well, I think.

Caution however, it also drinks very well! Place that car outdoor and wait for it. I mean the kind of heavy rain that you can't see across the street. If this happen to you or anyone, run for it to cover it up because you'll pickup peepee color water from the back of your seats I promise.

The 986 '97 drinks anyway. Not sure about the models... looks like not many are complaining

Luck to the others lolll