Drat. So that's why the screen is misting up.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m04.aol.com, Dave Baker decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

I take it you've checked the sill drain holes aren't blocked? I had a Mk2 RS2000 that did exactly what you're describing.

Sadly it's nothing that simple. The Focus has two huge sill drain holes, one by the front of the door and one about level with the rear of it. You can get your thumb inside them. It would take some wire mesh and a liberal dollop of body filler to block those up and both are clear. Good idea though.

What's also puzzling is that the front and rear of the passenger side floor appears to be separated by a crossmember, or floorpan bulge, that the carpet goes up and over. It's hard to see how water getting in at the back could reach the front or vice versa other than by soaking up and over through the carpet. However Google tells of cases where pollen filter housing leaks and other maladies caused wet carpets both front and rear so I guess the two halves are connected somehow. Next step is to get someone to play a hosepipe over it while I watch from inside.

As you feel higher up the front footwell the carpet is dry though and I'd expect that to be wet if it was the pollen filter leaking. I've got a nasty feeling it's a window or door seal. Either will be a pain because the windows are bonded in and the door seal means removing the trim which usually breaks every clip inside it whenever I've had to do it in the past.

Could as you say be a window or door seal but the pollen filter housing is well known on these cars. I have one the same age as yours and have had soaked carpets on a number of occasions. Happens each time the car is serviced and pollen filter changed unless the seal is re-applied. The damp can transfer through to the back as well, and you can be talking about a lot of water in a short time.

If it is raining, or if you hose the car, you can see the drip from the lower pass side of the central console. Our drive is a fairly steep slope and if the car is parked facing uphill the drip rate is much less than if the car is parked facing downhill.

So, either park your car uphill or seal the pollen filter and chances are this should fix it. This happened on our car from new and it took a long time until the dealer admitted it was a "feature" of the Focus.

Pete G.

Easy. It's a common problem on the Focus. The pollen filter on the left hand side is leaking. If you've just taken it for a service at a Ford stealership then take it back and bitch.

If not.

Take the single screw out of the plate over the wiper arms and pull both plates off and you will see the filter. Get a new filter and toss the soaked one.

If you look there is a small lip that settles under the bottom edge of the screen. Check the drains for that are clear.

The upper surface is usually secured with a sticky butyl rubber. I've found sealing it with mastic works just as well.

Parking the vehicle uphill will exacerbate the problems so try and park it nose downhill if you can.

My lad's Focus was a bit damp inside. The garage "found" that the seal in the high level rear brake light was leaking. Easy to fix they said. A thorough look later found broken window glass under the rear seat. So.... I actually suspect that the rear window was broken between the previous owner and my lad, a period of about 2 months. They (one man company) traded it in for a new car in late September, we bought it in November. Previous owner was adamant that the boot/carpets were dry and that it had never had a broken window, he'd had it since nearly new. Dave

Well I spent an hour pouring jugs of water over the door and windows and couldn't see a drop getting inside. Gave up, came in, pondered it, found a web article on how to access the pollen filter and decided to have a peek in that.

Finally got the three bloody stupid fiddly plastic clips open without breaking any and the pollen filter is soaking wet for about half its length - the half that's closest to the centre of the car. Looking at the old mastic stuck to the filter cover and it pretty much wasn't stuck to the cover in the same area as the filter was wet. Adjacent to where the filter was dry the mastic was stuck like bloody superglue. That's been another fun 20 minutes trying to scrape all that off.

OK so there's that little drip tray affair that extends under the glass and is supposed to catch any water that gets past the mastic but what a fecking stupid design. Typical bloody Ford. Instead of putting the air inlet where water can't get at it in the first place they put it right under the window glass and then design a complicated semi-functional piece of plastic to try and keep it dry. My drip tray has two holes in one end just past the filter box but it looks like whatever water gets through those could easily run back onto the filter. That's the wet end too. Are they meant to be there or has someone drilled them in? I'm trying to decide whether to tape them up before I put it all back together.

Anyway, we'll try copious amounts of bathroom silicone and see if the car dries out.

Wonder if it's been accident repaired on that side and the inner door membranes not properly replaced? Seems some cars these days require a decent seal on them rather than just a couple of bits of tape.

Go to your nearest car wash and whilst it's 'cleaning' your car keep an eye on the bottom of the doors for leaks. A friend with a hose is cheaper but less convenient.

Darren

I'm not aware that it was ever in an accident and there's no evidence of repairs but you never know. However, I can't see any leaks or water stains round the bottom of the door and no water came in after several jugs of water. What I did find which pissed me off was a patch of bubbled paint with rust underneath on the horizontal ledge of the door skin just where the wing mirror sits over it. That might be indicative of some problem in the past.

Anyway, the pollen filter was wet and no evidence of other leaks so no that's been refitted we'll wait and see. I added a small mod to the pollen filter lid. I ran a bead of silicone round where the two drain holes were drilled in it to act as a drip ledge. Hopefully any water that gets in will drip straight down off the silicone rather than run back along the underside of the lid and drip down onto the filter. The more I look at the design the less convinced I am that silicone between the glass and the lid is actually the right cure.

The other thing I'm thinking is we had the wettest summer for years and not a drop came in but as soon as the weather got cold its damp inside even though there's not much rain. I'm now considering another possibility. I do very little mileage and most of that is 1/2 mile trips to Budgens. Just long enough to get a carful of fresh cold damp air inside and warm it up a bit. Overnight maybe that moisture is condensing out and then next evening I repeat the process with another load of damp air. The neighbour's house and some trees are right next to the passenger side when it's parked and it only gets sun on the driver's side. Maybe the moisture is condensing out onto the colder passenger side and the driver's side is staying dry. A few months of cold weather and perhaps that's enough moisture to end up with wet carpets. Every car I've owned since being in this house has ended up with wet carpets on the passenger side.

I might try an experiment and start reversing in and parking it the other way round. In theory the carpets should then get wet on the drivers side if that was the problem.

Just had a look at the Ford manual on CD because I can't remember whether mine has these holes or not, and there is no mention of them on the CD. Don't want to have a look at my car, or I'll end up breaking the seal again!!

Agree about the stupid design though. Would have been better to design a system that didn't leak rather than try to engineer a solution after it does leak! I think Ford must have a leak design department - my last Mondeo leaked in the boot from the light seals, and so did an earlier Sierra! Current Mondeo seems watertight though, although I'll probably regret saying that.

Look on the bright side - all the time you have spent checking this out has saved you from sitting in front of the telly watching old movies! Hope the bathroom sealant works.

the mk2 mondeao's had the rear light seals leak after a while nothing to do but use silicon to glue them into place permanantly :)

pollen filter apparently only ford have the specific stuff to reseal it with, but if the people who do the job are running late they tend to "forget" and it leaks

well well documented and it's one of the things to look out for when buying a focus