Any suggestions on how best to dry out the seats? They have the bun warmers which I dearly love... I hope they're rain-proof!

How'd this happen?

Okay, I fully admit this was an idiotic thing to do... yesterday was bright and sunny, about 70... It was getting warm and I had loaded up the MINI with the recycling to take to the bins. I didn't want to stink up the car in the heat so I opened the sunroof. One thing led to another and I didn't take the recycling... forgot all about it. And the open sunroof.

I woke up around 6 am to the sound of gentle (thank goodness!) rain... about 2.5 seconds later it registered.... OH CRAP! Grabbed the keys, ran outside and sure enough... wet seats. Thank goodness it hadn't been raining hard as it seems like only the seats and the carpet around the center console are wet. No puddles in the footwells - carpet's barely even damp there.

I'm really kicking myself on this one... my poor Sebby's been through a lot lately! Since November he's bent a rim, gotten a bubble on his tire, gotten egged, shot by a b-b gun (windshield), (lightly - 5 mph) rear ended and shoved into the car in front of him and he's had to haul ten loads of my crap to a storage locker full to the gills. I now I'm torturing him with this... I'm feeling like a bad MINI-momma...

 

Let it air dry, it will be fine. Do not turn on the heaters for a couple days. Sit on some towels while you drive to soak as much up as it can.

 

Well, if you had a convertible, this sort of thing would happen all the time cause you would practice OPEN MOTORING, or at least you SHOULD! So just think of it as a semi-convertible rain experience and you'll be fine

 

Hmmm... while convertibles are pretty cool, I like my hardtop just fine. Works a lot better at keeping the weather out (when you close it)!

 

What kind of seat upholstery you have? I hope is not cloth or leather.

 

Is it cloth or leather? Do you have a good wet & dry vacuum? When I worked at a detail shop (a few decades ago) we used to wet the cloth interior down, scrub with with brushes, then vacuum it back up. Just blott it as well as you can with towels, vac, blott, vac, etc.

Edit: and if you do that again I will have to call MINI Protective Services to report you!

 

Ummm... what other choices are there? I have space cloth... though plastic or neoprene seem like good choices right now!

 

If you have a wet/dry shop vac, you can help accelerate the drying of the seats by slowly vacuuming the water from them. Hit the carpet and areas around the console as well, because underneath the carpet between the shifter and the e-brake is where the airbag module lies. If you have Nav , make sure there is no water puddled in the area under the passenger's seat where the computer is. Place a small fan inside the car to blow across the seats and keep the windows opened (when it's not raining or snowing ) to help dry out the interior better. Place towels on the seats and then plastic bags over the towels if you have to drive the car and want to avoid a wet bum and at the same time help dry out the seats. Use the heaters only after the seats are no longer soaking wet, but may still feel damp.

 

I do it again & I'll report myself!

I don't have a wet/dry here (staying with my mom in Wilmington NC)... maybe I'll have to buy another one. Well, my seats DID need cleaning... maybe this was a hint?

I just wish it would stop raining so I could go work on getting it dried out. That wet recycling in a closed up car is probably not going to make things smell any better...

 

The other choices are leatherette (From German plastic cows) and "real" leather from supposedly "real cows".

My only concern with your cloth seats is the development of mold in the fabric. I would try to get these dried up professionally, because there is the potential for nasty odors to develop. This is one of the reasons why I hate fabric car seats.

If you had leatherette, all you had to worry about is to dry them up with a rag or towel and you are done.

Best of luck.

 

Airbag module?? Crap... do you think a little water will damage it? I'd hate to end up making this an insurance claim...

 

Use your AC on RECIRC - it will help dry the air in the car so that it can absorb the water from the seats...

 

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone... I love NAM.

 

Is there a do-it-yourself carwash in the area? They have the big wet & dry vacs.

 

Took the words right off my keyboard.

This will give the natural drying process a head start.

 

So I'm not the only idiot that's ever done this??

 

Bummer Deb............ I hope you get a few more nice warm days to help Sebby air dry.

Donna

 

while worrying about the electronics in a MINI when something like this happes is quite justified, i wouldnt think about it TOO much. You gotta figure they think people will leave the windows down/sunroof open. Ive taken the seats out and the uderside is nothing to worry about. There are a few cables but theres no way water is going to get all the way down there, at least not enough to cause a problem. The airbag plugs are insulated/sealed anyway as to prevent a problem from occuring, in the case of a bath. You're safe

 

I would only worry about this module if the area had standing water in it. By it's nature it's a sealed assembly with weathertight connectors. Unless the car was absolutely, totally soaked, there wont be a problem. It's still a good idea to dry out the immediate area to prevent any sort of corrosion of mounting hardware and things of that nature.

You arent the only one who has left their sunroof open.

 

Man, it is STILL raining down here... and supposed to be cold tonight and cloudy tomorrow.

I discovered my headliner is wet too... grrr. A bit under my floor mats, but only for about 6-10 inches around the seats. No funny lights or anything... just the idiot driving it.

I dread the thought of MOLD in my car! Hopefully it will warm up here very soon so I can bake the thing dry... there doesn't seem to be enough water to vacuum, but I've been driving around trying to find a wet/dry vac at car washes. No luck yet, but have a list of all the ones around town.

I've been driving around with the heat on, recycling with AC... it's making me sleepy... very sleepy! LOL

If this wasn't so annoying, I'd be laughing at what an idiot I am. Why couldn't I have done something this stupid to my old Volvo with 300K on it? Oh, wait... that had no sunroof and the floorboards were holey enough things would have drained right out... LOL

 

hey there, call me crazy, but might a large bag of cat litter (desicant crystal kind) in a pillow case placed in the car with windows closed should dry it out in a couple of days. Maybe run it with the AC blasting for awhile??
good luck.

James

btw, if you have a kitty, he or she can have the litter afterwards. Seriously though a desicant should work.

 

Dessicant is a good idea. You can buy small (1-gallon size) buckets of the stuff at places like Wal-Mart, I think. It's sold for use as a product to absorb moisture in closets, but should work in other small enclosed spaces. You just leave the lid off it, and the chemical in the bucket (calcium chloride) pulls the moisture out of the air, thus speeding evaporation from the fabric.

The SRS module should be OK. The contacts on the airbag harness connectors are gold-plated to resist corrosion. Rainwater is unlikely to cause a problem, but spilled soda pop is a different story. The phosphoric acid it contains can eat through the plating (saw this first hand- certain mid-90's model Geo Prizms had a safety recall to inspect the modules, replace damaged ones, and retrofit a spash guard. Some brilliant designer put a cup holder big enough for a Big Gulp directly above the SRS control module, and located the mounting screws in the bottom of the cupholder well. Presto- perfect leakage path! )

Hope things dry out fast!

 

Do you have a garage available, or anywhere that you can park it indoors? If so, leave the doors open, windows down, and park one of those small personal, desktop fans inside the car. Point it at a wet area and move it every couple of hours. Or place one of those large floor fans so it blows air through the car, in one door and out the other. Keep as much air moving through the car as possible, and it will dry out fairly quickly.

 

well, if it makes you feel any better my mini, sam, and i are up in bar harbor, me for the winter... so far her hood's been shoveled (no, not by me!), leaving six huge scratches / gashes, she's NEVER clean, you can't even tell she's green!, there are piles of slushy mud on my rubber mats, back seats are filthy (i've been doing a lot of driving people around lately), it's been so cold i've been getting frost on the inside of my windows, and my "indestructable" license plate frames are now rust colored instead of black! yikes! i can't wait to go home to clean her up. gashes may have to wait, though. i'm in school up here and i figure i'll clean and wax her up good then after college get her all fixed up.
let me tell you, though, after keeping her in pristine condition in new york it's upsetting to see her such a mess!
but she sure runs great, even in the snow with the regular run flat all seasons. can't complain there.

 

Do you know anyone with a de-humidifier? That would do the trick, and you could leave it alone. I think that would work faster than desicant, would it not?