Hypothetically speaking, if a person were to be so dumb as to leave a 1-L bottle of water in the little elastic strap stowage area in the back of their Defender, and, hypothesizing further, it got cold enough at night to freeze the water and burst the aluminum bottle, where would the water end up?

I'm asking for a friend, of course. For the sake of argument, let's just say that this friend discovered the burst bottle a few days after the hypothetically cold weather had done its damage, and the burst bottle was totally empty. Where would the water go?

My friend has searched everywhere in the back of his hypothetical Defender and can't find a trace of it....

 

I had a friend who lef an ice filled 2 gallon cooler lose all its water into the trunk of my, I mean his Defender.

it will go to the lowest point of the monocoque. You’ll see some under the battery and infotainment unit under the front seats.

wont be much.

Tell your pal to wick out what they can with some sponge and leave it alone n the hot sun with all the doors open and the covers off the battery and infotainment areas.

If your friend doesn’t live in a sunny warm climate he will probably be fine. My mate was.

other than a very transient electrical gremlin day or two no harm done.

 

Frozen water bottles, and "leave it in the sun to dry out" don't equate.

Wherever it was, it won't have gone far. I'd have to assume it was in there a while if it was able to be a liquid, then a solid, expand and blow out the side, and then change back to a liquid and disappear.

 

This is a really funny thread.
A friend of a friend is asking, why isn't there a drain under all this so the water will simply exit the vehicle?

 

My friend with the leaked cooler, asked the forum about a drain in the monocoque. The Defender is buttoned up tighter than a fish's back side. Lends itself to reliable wading. There is no removable plug to leak. If something can leak it will leak. I'll take the trade off. Although a removable drain would be an idea my mate might have found useful.

 

I'm not a fan of metal water bottles and drinking mugs - especially not the Sigg ones that are exactly like Sigg fuel bottles. Many years ago, a friend of my father (literally a friend this time) was camping with an unpainted bottle full of kerosene for his stove, and a painted bottle full of water for himself. In the middle of the night he took a big swig from the wrong bottle, and ended up in the hospital after his buddies carried him out of the woods.

These days, my wife and daughter carry around enormous metal insulated mugs and bottles that have broken ceramic dishes when they collide, and broke a bicycle water bottle cage when they insisted on carrying their water in the insulated metal bottle for a ride.

Plastic isn't so bad - you can even get insulated plastic bottles. They do less damage when they impact other things, and they probably stretch a bit when the water inside them freezes.

Hope your friend finds the missing water...

 

Thanks guys. A little more info about this colossal brain fart of mine. Yes, the Sigg bottle lived in the Defender full time as dog water. I keep a collapsible bowl in the opposite side elasto-cubby thingamajig. We had a cold snap last week for a few days where we had single digits overnight (I live in Michigan). I guess it burst during one of those nights, and then I'm guessing that it slowly liquefied and ran out a little at a time. I never noticed water back there, or anywhere else for that matter. I thought for sure i'd find it in the under-the-floor cubby stowage area, but it's bone dry. I am truly mystified as to where it went.

But I guess if it melted slowly (it's still cold, after all), maybe what little thawed on any given day was just on the rubber mat and the car's A/C took care of it. I really don't know where else to look.

I'm normally a Nalgene guy, but someone gave me this Sigg a few years ago. Lesson learned!

 

We were heading out to ski in on a sunny morning with the temp at -20. I went out to start the LR3 and there is brown slush all over the steering wheel, dashboard, inside of the windshield and headliner. What could this be? Then I saw the can of Diet Coke split in half in the cupholder and completely empty. Unfortunately Diet Coke slush doesn't evaporate and just leaves a sticky mess as it thaws.

 

I know someone who used to carry 60 L of water in the loadspace on touring trips, and in the base where the dcdc charger and lithium battery lay, he installed a bilge pump, conductivity sensor and hose into a top tray to alleviate his paranoia. One time he didn't close the bleed valve, just to confirm that the pump worked. 😳

 

At the other end of the temperature spectrum, I was in a rented BMW wagon in Germany for a couple of weeks, driving a carpool of my coworkers around. At one point I came back to the car to find a sticky mess all over the steering wheel, dashboard, inside of windshield and headliner. It turns out if you leave a can of Coke in the back seat on a hot day in a sealed car, it expands and splits in half, exploding all over the interior. Took me an hour or so to get the thing clean.

The lesson for all of us: don't leave full soda cans in the car, regardless of season...