I just picked up a CPO'd 09' Turbo. I drove it in a thunder stormed last night and water started to seep pretty bad on the passenger side near the glove box. It was a lot of water, around 16 ounces. I duplicated the occurrence after washing the car.

Has anyone ever had this problem before? Probably not an occurrence that would be caught during the CPO inspection. I hope it's just a loose seal somewhere.

Sorry for the crap pic.

 

Could be that the drain pipes inside the cowl are clogged. Open up the front trunk, take off the plastic covers over the cowl, where the battery is, look around and you'll see two plastic hoses on the left and right side of the battery. If the cowl is dirty, or wet or full of leaves and etc. chances are the drain hoses are clogged. Be careful pushing on them as they can be pushed out and then it's hell putting them back on.

If that is the case, take it back to dealer and have them clean it for FREE, as it should have been part of the CPO. It's a known issue with the turbos.

 

Thanks 512, I'll check it out. Hopefully that's all it is.

 

+1 Agree with 512bb. There is not much in that spot but what has been indicated. Good luck to you.

DC

 

I was going to tell you to try out a smoke box, where you place it inside the car, close door with windows up of course to find the place where water is leaking (smoke will be coming out from that leaking spot). But this process is usually done when leak is coming from windows or spots up there. Yours seems like what the rest of the guys are explaining. Good luck

 

Thanks for the help guys. I actually looked at the cowl that covered the battery area and noticed that the top corners of the cowl wasn't sitting flush with the other plastic cowls next to them leaving a small gap in which water may have seeped in. I made everything flush again and then sprayed the car down in attempts to duplicate the water seepage. At first all looked good but then a very tiny amount of water found its way back into the cabin area. A few drips as oppose to a stream of water coming into the cabin though.

I couldn't locate the plastic hoses 512 mentioned but I'll try again later. Thanks again for the help!

 

OK so it down poured here in chicago today and I was right in the middle of it. AGAIN water seeped its way into the cabin. Took a closer look under the cowl and saw the drains. They aren't hoses that are visible but actual drains. I stuck my finger in the one that appeared to be backed up and sure enough lots of silt. May have found the culprit here.

Did a quick search on 997 drain clogs and didn't come up with much. Not much is said on how people unclog these besides using compressed air. I'm just worried that the hose may come loose and cause a bigger headache.

I checked out the CPO check list and couldn't find anything on there regarding the checking of the drains before it could be CPO'd so that could be a reason why it was never done. I'm pretty sure the dealer will charge a ridiculous amount to perform this cleaning.

This is my 5th 997 turbo and I never even thought about the drains until this incident.

 

My only advice is to be careful not to push those hoses/drains down into the "black hole". That will be an expensive repair. I had the dealer clean them for me (not sure how much I paid, but I am sure it was too much - I would say at least one hour of labor) as I wanted their name on their if anything went wrong.

If you do it yourself, move gentle and move slow.

 

Thanks 512.

I very carefully used my finger to remove the silt that was clogging the drain. I then poured water down the drain to see if it would exit the bottom which it did. Hopefully no more water in the cabin.

Thanks everyone for your help!