Slight Leak in Passenger Footwell

[sym]

Whilst fitting COMAND today, and removing my nokia phone kit in prep for COMAND phone kit, I had the passenger footwell carpet out.

Some fluid appears to have leaked from somewhere into the footwell - appears to be from the floor / rear left / back of footwell, and has soaked part of the foam, near where the steel rear footplate is bolted to the floor on the left hand side.

Not a huge amount of fluid, but part of the foam footwell lining where it has seeped in was saturated with it.

Fluid is odourless, and dark coloured (reddy greenish) - a bit of an oily consistency, but not oil . . could it be antifreeze from the heater matrix perhaps ?

I'm wondering whether it could be the remains of a previous problem which has been repaired and not cleaned up properly. The car is running absolutely normally.

Any ideas anybody ?

S.

 

[Dieselman]

Possibly air con refridgerant.

 

[sym]

Originally posted by Dieselman
Possibly air con refridgerant.

Is it possible to check the level to see if it's low ? (Without taking anything apart !)

S.

 

[Dieselman]

Is the air con cold and dot the fans run quite hard?

Also there should be a sight glass on top of the reciever probably behind one of the headlamps. The system is low if there are a lot of bubbles in the fluid. You may need to put a drop of water on the sight glass to see bubbles passing.

 

[NormanB]

Well it will not be refrigerant, that will gas off at ambient temp, but could be refrigerant oil - I would have though for that amount of 'oil' it would have been accompanied by a significant proportion of your refrigerant charge and the aircon system would no longer function - but then you say it is not oil. Wise to check sightglass and aircon function as suggested though.

It is possible that it is coolant - what colour is the inhibitor currently in the system? If it is coolant it must be a fairly fresh leak and the smell is normally a give away. Are you losing level in expansion tank? Most likely source interior wise must be the heater matrix or stubs.

If you are fitting COMAND, then assume your vehicle is a tot so it is damn bad luck for heater matrix to go so soon!

Nobody else using the vehicle by any chance and spilled something and not owned up?

 

[sym]

Thanks Dieselman & NormanB

The aircon has been functioning fine... blows freezing cold.

I noticed a very small amount of fluid about 4 months ago when I originally fitted the phone kit . . . mopped it up - thought it was just condensation in the footwell or something - I but didn't have the carpet out completely at that time. For all I know, it may have been in there for a while - absorbed in the foam lining. I had to squeeze the foam quite a bit to get it all out and it didn't seem to fill up again.

Coolant level is up to the max. It is the same colour though, so maybe it was an old leak. Doesn't smell at all though . . very mysterious !

Will check the refrigerant level tomorrow if I can.