Help: on a road trip - liquid dripping in Passenger footwell

[pierremcalpine]

Hi,
We are on a looong road trip and water has started to drip on my wife’s left foot on our (left hand drive) v40. I peered into the footwell and pulled off the cover for the cabin air filter and the foam is totally soaked. The air filter itself is dry except for the bottom side. The piece of rectangular plastic just to the left of the filter housing also seems wet. I think that is the evaporator drain pan. I thought maybe it was the Ac evaporator drain that was clogged but it seems to be draining fine under car. Any ideas?

[pierremcalpine]

So I’ve switched seats with my wife and seems like it’s water. Hmmm.

[kmb]

Does it stop when you switch off the air con?

If if was heater matrix it would have a sweet smell (taste also if you touch it and then put your finger tip on your tongue) and possibly also steam up your window, so A/C drain does sound likely...

[pierremcalpine]

Doesn’t seem to be sticky or taste like anything. Pretty sure it’s water. Unfortunately given the temp 32deg) driving without air is not possible right now.

[druid]

The air con vent is in the engine bay, described as looking like Gonzo nose.

[JRL]

Definitely draining under the car? If it is just water that points to a blocked air con drain tube. Try driving for an hour with the air con off. If the water drip stops with the air con off that will confirm a blocked drain.

[pierremcalpine]

Hah, Gonzo’s nose. Thank you for the laugh. I had forgotten all about that muppets guy.

I had previously extended “gonzo’s nose” with a black rubber hose to redirect flow of water further back along the underside of car. I HAVE confirmed that it does drain but I have only checked when stopped with car off. I wonder if all our luggage and 4 passengers might be pinching the hose when underway. Will explore this further. It barely rained at all on day 2 of travels and the dripping seemed to continue at same small rate.

[pierremcalpine]

My thoughts are converging to thinking it's a leaky evaporator.
1) I had a leaky evaporator on my home system. The leak eventually force the compressor to run continuously which prevented the evaporator from staying clear of frost. The frost built up and totally clogged the drain and eventually created a giant mess on the floor of my basement.

2) The dripping has all but stopped now that I'm back to making shorter trips. Recall that I had driven 2x10hrs when the dripping began. With the above in mind, I'm thinking that with longer stops in between drives, the evaporator can clear itself of frost and the condensation can be evacuated as per design.

3) I've got clear signs of ac refrigerant dye on the cabin air filter right in the center. I'm guessing that this lines up directly with where the leak is present on the evaporator which is located right next to the filter (I think).

4) My a/c feels like it needs a recharge. It will run cold 75% of time only.

Going for a stop-gap solution tomorrow with a re-gas. That should tide my daughter over for hopefully 8 months until I can plan a dash removal, etc.