Hi. I had some water leaks. Root cause was blocked AC drain tubes. Fixed. Carpet is very wet on Driver and Passenger sides, front.

I want to pull back the front carpets as much as possible, to determine next steps to completely dry it out and prevent future nasty mouldy smells. Will be removing both front seats. May remove center console, depending on what I find.

Here's where I'm stuck - there is a black plastic 'brick' shaped thing, to rest your left foot on, left side of driver side. I want to remove this, to be able to fold back the carpet. I don't see any external clips or screws, so I'm assuming it pulls off somehow. Pull up? Pull to the right side? I don't want to damage it.


Thanks, Simon

 

That center part is a panel that pops off the foot rest. Then you need 8 or 10mm sockets with extensions to remove two nuts or bolts. The hood latch lever has to come off too if you want to remove the kick panel, that is a torx screw.

 

Excellent. Thank you. The 'lower' bolt snapped, rusted, so I'm going to quickly weld on a new nut/bolt in an attempt to remove the original broken bolt - I do want it to be properly secured, when I put it all back together.

Let the detox begin! I do have a steam cleaner, carpet cleaner wet-vac, and Ozone machine, so I should be able to get rid of any current bad stuff, and prevent any future bad stuff, within the carpets.





I might even take advantage of the front seats being out, and re-do the leather.

Cheers, Simon

 

Reporting back. The cleaning went very well. Did not need to replace any of the Driver Side foam padding (beneath the carpet). Removed some of the Passenger side foam padding, for further inspection, and I do need to replace a small amount. Less than a square foot. You can tell quite easily - Any padding which is a bright, light, almost white, color is good. The 'browner' (darker) it is, the more moisture it has captured. I did not do a thorough deep clean on some of the carpet that is beneath the Seats. Although, it actually looks better than the photo below suggests, due to lighting differences. Very pleased with it. There wasn't a single stain that I could not remove, using a combination of steam cleaner, lots of micro-fiber cloths, a little carpet cleaning solution, a little warm water, and the wet-vac. As you can see, I made sure that I protected all electrical connections with ziploc bags and zip-ties, prior to starting the cleaning.

 

Came out great. Mine were so bad I pulled them out fully and pressure washed them.