Interior water leaks

Made an account just to post this - a water leak issue that took several months to diagnose and about 5 minutes to fix. I haven't seen this described anywhere else in my searching so I wanted to get this out there so hopefully someone else experiencing the same issue will find it.

The issue: water would be found in the cabin interior under the front passenger carpets after extended heavy rain.

The fix: there is a shared drain area in the frame used by both the sunroof and cowl where crud (like dead leaf bits) can accumulate and end up blocking it, which makes water overflow into the interior during periods of heavy rain. Cleaning this should resolve the issue. (see pictures)

The diagnosis process (long, but for the sake of anyone searching for this issue or partially along this process themselves)

The issue did not occur during extended periods light rain, or brief periods of heavy rain.
Vehicle was kept outside, surrounding area was lightly wooded (this actually does matter). For consistencies sake, we kept it parked in the same orientation each time once we noticed the issue.
After we first noticed the water, we opened up the interior molding to see if we could find where the penetration occurred. There was no obvious entry (e.g. no water just pouring in) but there was definite moisture inside the front passenger A-pillar, from the base (near the floor) all the way up to the speakers in the A-pillar (which is as far as we could get a hand)
Given how high up the water was, we started checking areas above that level, primarily the sunroof and the front windshield. We did notice a lot of dead leaves lodged in the front passenger cowl (between the windshield and hood), so we cleaned those out, thinking that water might be overflowing from there to a gap somewhere. We then took the garden hose and saturated all the seams (door/windshield/roof rail/cowl/engine bay/etc.) in the whole front passenger area
We couldn’t see any obvious water penetration either.
We next noticed that after heavy rain there was standing water in the front passenger sunroof tray drain line (the area below the sunroof that’s intended to channel any water that makes it through into drain tubes). It would drain within two or three days after the rain stopped.
This obviously indicated some sort of problem, but didn’t make sense – if it was clogged, how could it also be leaking?
We tried putting a partial cover over just the sunroof (because the whole vehicle covers are a pain), which didn’t fix the issue either (though the sunroof has less water in it)
We finally ran a tube attached to an air compressor down the sunroof drain line to blow it out, which mostly just ended up blowing the water out of the top or blowing the air compressor tube out of the drain line. The drain line didn’t really drain any faster, but we did notice some slight water dripping near the front passenger wheel molding.
Finally we tried pulling the molding off that area, and lo and behold a ton of water and a bunch of dirt/crud fell out!

The root cause: over time, dirt/crud from the outside can flow through the drain lines from both the sunroof and cowl into a single area hidden by the body molding. Eventually this can clog up, and overflow into the interior of the vehicle. Cleaning this just requires popping the molding off and cleaning anything that has accumulated out. Picture below shows the area with the molding (which just pops off) between the front passenger door and wheel well.

Another update...after finding and fixing leaks on the driver's side months ago and NEVER having water on the passenger side in over two years, I thought I was good. Being in central Florida, where it rains almost daily during the summer, a leak would be pretty evident. For months, there's been no evidence (and I've checked) but a few weeks ago, I opened the door and smelled that damp, mildewy smell that meant lots of water inside. It was so bad that at first I thought a window had been left open but only the underside of the carpet on the passenger side was very wet. I removed the outside trim on that side and checked and it turns out I had the exact two leaks as on the driver's side - a trickle at the upper corner/side of the window and a much bigger leak into the trim clip holes. I made the same 'fixes' to the window and trim clips as I had done on the driver's side. The truck was recently outside during hurricane Ian with no water inside after the storm. So (maybe) my leaks are finally fixed...until the next one shows up that is.

I replaced the foam 'washers' on the three inner clips shown here. I also added a lot of butyl tape along the window and between those two things, no water is getting in.


Here's a typical old foam piece (black) and one I used to replace it. I suspect other owners' leaks are because of this same issue. It just takes a few minutes to check and a little longer to fix but it's not difficult.

IMRIDGELINE said:

So if it is wet where does water come from and what is the fix?

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The water comes from various locations - most often through a missing or insufficient portion of seam sealer on the rear of the cab, but sometimes around the back window or a pass-through. The fix is to apply seam sealer or reseat/replace a grommet/gasket or reinstall/replace the rear window assembly.

IMRIDGELINE said:

Is this common or is it a small percent?

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If this poll is anywhere near accurate, as many as 1 out of 5 Ridgelines might leak - possibly even more if everyone actually inspected for water leaks since they aren't always apparent. The good news is that complaints about water leaks have slowed suggesting that the situation may have improved.

IMRIDGELINE said:

Last if Honda knows about this why does it keep happening?

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That's a good question. None of us know. I'm sure that Honda doesn't want Ridgelines to leak, but the design and/or assembly process might be to blame and are too expensive to fix so it keeps happening. Complaints about water leaks can be found on nearly every make and model of vehicle ever sold. First generation Ridgelines leaked occasionally, but second generation Ridgelines appear to be much more prone to the issue. Since it's been going on for years, it must be cheaper for Honda to fix leaky vehicles than to address the root cause which may solve itself for the next generation.

ridginald said:

The issue: water would be found in the cabin interior under the front passenger carpets after extended heavy rain.

The fix: there is a shared drain area in the frame used by both the sunroof and cowl where crud (like dead leaf bits) can accumulate and end up blocking it, which makes water overflow into the interior during periods of heavy rain. Cleaning this should resolve the issue. (see pictures)

The diagnosis process (long, but for the sake of anyone searching for this issue or partially along this process themselves)

Click to expand...

I should have read this before I got started trying to diagnose and fix water getting under the front passenger carpet. After some heavy rain, the underside of the front carpet was wet and I assumed it was a similar issue as the back - badly sealed seam, foam washer that was no longer sealing a hole, etc. but it turned out to be a much easier fix (like ridginald said above but mine is slightly different). My driver side sunroof drain was clogged and the water that should have exited near the front (driver) tire couldn't and water was getting in the cabin at the passenger front corner. I guess there was simply too much water to all get out. This would happen with a heavy rain or when I filled the area at the front of the sunroof with water. Online, you'll find suggestions to use weed trimmer line to 'snake' through the drain from the top. That worked for me but took several tries because the trimmer line is not very stiff. After fixing the clog, I saw the idea of using a speedometer cable and ordered one for about $9 on Amazon. It seems like it will work better as it's basically a tiny version of a plumber's snake - flexible and stronger than trimmer line. Anyway, cleaning out these drains might be a good thing to do occasionally - maybe every oil change or so.