After a night of heavy rain I went out to my car this morning and immediately smelled something that resembled cat pee. I found the problem in the boot with some of the micro fiber towels that were damp. I did not think much about it at the time I just hung them to dry in the garage and went on to work.



At lunch I had the nagging feeling that I needed to check this again. The rear boot carpet was slightly damp, but once I lifted up the carpet I found 3.5" of rain water surrounding my battery.



Anyone else ever had this happen - how concerned should I be???

 

Do you have a sunroof? If you do and the sunroof was ever removed, it's possible the sunroof wasn't put back in correctly. This happened to me.

 

Moderetely concerned, battery + water is a bad thing. Could potentially cause a short in the car. I would attempt to get the water out and find the source of the leak. Could very well be the drain channels from the rear sunroof are dislodged or plugged...

 

Everyone should be concerned. My '05 Mini S with sunroof is currently in the shop. I had 28,300 miles on the original battery and was in the process of replacing it. That is when a significant amount of water was discovered in the battery box. My car did short out. It's a rather expensive fix. My cables from the trunk to the front bay need to be replaced as well as the fuse box located in the boot. Don't forget to neutrlize the rust in the box. Review the NAM March '09 posts concerning this situation.