Ford Galaxy - Water in Footwell? Windscreen & Sun roof drainage

[Chrispb]

Water in the foot wells can be from a number of sources but the primary two are listed below:

Front Drainage:
Water is designed to flow off the windscreen downwards and into a scuttle where its then deposited out of two drains behind the front wheel arch liners. Over time these drains can collect leaves, sticks and other road debris to become blocked. When this happens water can pool in the scuttle and eventually begin to lap at the bottom of the pollen filter which then allows it to drip into the passenger foot well. Vehicles with sun roofs can suffer when the front drain tubes get submerged in the rubbish stopping the sunroof pan from draining. A number of revisions occurred over the original Galaxy's design with the sunroof drain being shortened to just a stub of pipe as the exit and the scuttle cowling being redesigned to limit debris from entering the scuttle.

The full fix is to remove the wheel and then the screws that hold the wheel arch liner to the wing (if mudflaps are fitted remove these as well). You can then pull out the liner - on earlier cars you will see the sunroof tubes buried in mud leaves and any thing thats been washed down through the scuttle drains, dig out the mud then wash out with hose pipe, squeeze the little flap on the end of the sun roof tubes for blockages, finally test by pouring an amount of water into the sunroof channel and watch it exit.

This photo shows the scuttle exit (Lower arrow) and the stubby sunroof exit pipe (Top arrow). The primary area for blockage is around the scuttle exit where leaves build up on the other side of this exit.
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These two show the lower section of arch on both wings where the water should be able to exit from behind the arch liner, When these block water can build up and pass into the gap between the wing and door (which will not enter the cabin) but this wet mud will be a rust spot and must be cleaned out.
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Finally with the mud all cleared out you can see where the two exits are, one at the bottom and one slightly further up. You can see a clear "tide" mark where the wet mud has been sitting and also the very first signs of rust creeping in!
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These two show the big revision that took place around 2004 (The plastics can be retrofitted to earlier models), note the bonnet gets an aerofoil piece attached to it to flow air over the top of the windscreen wipers - this doubles to help reduce wind noise from the wipers when not in use.

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Detached Pipe:
Wet saturated carpet on the front passenger side is commonly down to the supply pipe to the rear screen washer becoming detached, this is normally attributed to water in the pipe freezing in the winter months if not enough screenwash addative is used. The pipe can be pushed back together and a small cable tie used to prevent further problems. Access to the pipe requires removal of the scuff trim (two or three screws) then lift carpet, takes a few minutes to fix the pipe unfortunately it can take days to dry out the carpet and sound deadening material.

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