The Lotus Grand Tourers

Even when I cover the car with a car cover, after any rainfall, I find a lot of water in both footwells.
Does anyone know how this is most likely to be getting there?

mrpmarchant wrote:Even when I cover the car with a car cover, after any rainfall, I find a lot of water in both footwells.
Does anyone know how this is most likely to be getting there?

How big is your cover, the reason I ask is that if I park my car on a slope i.e. Nose lower I get water in through the windscreen seal if I park nose up I don't. Balsa check the seals in the side roof strips it was getting in there and then running down the door rubbers. One last possibility is the scuttle drain being blocked b

We found water coming in the footwells not long after we bought the car. Lifted the carpets, which were new (and not the original) and found that the original carpet fixings that went through the floor were missing and water was coming up,through them! They were sealed and we have not had any further problems.

Make sure you check the doorseals. When I had water in my footwell I found it was tracking down the doorseal onto the interior door sill and then into the footwell. A tiny dribble quickly adds up to a pool in the footwell

Thanks, I am heartened that at least it might be curable!

I have the same problem with mine. I notice water coming in through the bottom of my screen and tracking across the dash when I drive in the rain

When I purchased one of the Excels I didn't notice that it had standard sound deadening and carpet, domestic carpet and finally rubber mat. I did notice a bit of water inside the car and on the window as I powered it up, but accepted that these cars have some water ingress issues at times.
What I didn't realise was that the extra layer was to effectively space the rubber mat over the tide, or at least I didn't realise that until after a decent rainfall. By the time I was using the car for a while I had fixed the ingress, the jobs were: bottom of front screen, top of rear screen (gets beneath the rear seat then evaporation and condensation spreads it around), door seals and hinges (too warn and even a new seal is not enough), wiper gearbox exit washer.

Lotusbits say that the doors fill up and their draining holes can block up, and the same for the air plenum.

I think its sorted now.
The rubber door seals seem to be inside the carpet edges which catch and transmit water into the car from the door opening.
A liberal covering of silicone to seal over this exposure seems to have done the trick.
The door seals are still cantilever (upper edge loose), but if I do get any more water in I will consider masticking that edge back to the shell as well, as that is outside the carpet edges

Mine also comes in through the speedo cable grommet

I have sliced my speedo grommet in one position, to get an additional cable through for a starter button (instead of the last key position which stopped working). When putting it back, the slit is vertical on the underside, and no water ingress results =0)

i'm not trying to be funny, but having read your first post surely it would be better to cover the before any rain.

When I had a leak in mine which I eventually traced and sorted. I pulled up the carpets 9 months later after being in the dry for all this time and the carpets were still heavy with water due to the sponge material used for sound deadening.
There are about 4 layers of sound deadening and the water gets sandwiched between the fibreglass, the vinyl and the sponge material.
Maybe sit a de-humidifier in the car for a couple of days with everything sealed up to make sure the interior is as dry as possible before going undercover and re-opening at a later date to find mould spores
Don't forget to treat any leather and vinyl after this process.

mrpmarchant wrote:I have sliced my speedo grommet in one position, to get an additional cable through for a starter button (instead of the last key position which stopped working). When putting it back, the slit is vertical on the underside, and no water ingress results =0)

I found that the water ran along the speedo cable and then ran in through the grommet

MrCoolA wrote:

mrpmarchant wrote:I have sliced my speedo grommet in one position, to get an additional cable through for a starter button (instead of the last key position which stopped working). When putting it back, the slit is vertical on the underside, and no water ingress results =0)

I found that the water ran along the speedo cable and then ran in through the grommet

i use windscreen sealant where any cables or wires etc go into the car. it stays flexible so moves with throttle cables etc.