POLL: Have you found water under the carpet in your 2017+ Ridgeline?

I picked up my Ridgeline yesterday morning. According to service guy, the tech had a bit of a personal vendetta against my leak because he couldn't figure out where it was coming from. They ended up sealing every unsealed seam, and re-sealing others. I guess they just repeatedly ran the truck through the carwash to verify it was still leaking. They settled on the culprit being a couple bolts in the rail system on the top of the cab. I'll have to get a picture.

I did manage to get there before they had the rear seats fully installed, so I got to see the seam job from the inside. It seemed (no pun intended) fine to me.

So, an optimistic note. As you can imagine, the truck is very clean from the repeated washes. I noticed nothing out of the ordinary in the bed (which they removed). All of the panels are seated properly, none of the star bolts are stripped, though they have obviously been accessed as I could see a bit of surface wear. Nothing I wouldn't have caused myself. They re-seamed the rear window and I couldn't tell. The tech told me about a scratch on the rear black exterior pillar, which he had already ordered, and that there is a small plastic cap missing from the rear top of the truck, which he had already ordered. I am holding off on my inundation test until those parts are installed. Unless they're on backorder or something.

I drove it from Toledo to Troy and back yesterday and I didn't have any weird noises or anything, so that's reassuring. I noticed some weird car computer issues- they sorted themselves out by the time I started the truck twice, so I'm chalking it up to them having the battery disconnected. In case anyone else has them: (1) Initially, I had no climate control. Turning the fans on and off twice fixed this. (2) The engine auto-stop-and-start feature, which I don't even like that much, wasn't triggering. That is, even with the setting on (i.e. no light on the console), and the brake fully depressed, the engine kept running at stop lights. Hitting the button a couple times didn't help; but it started working after I started the truck in Troy.

Cbayman said:

There have been reported leaks at the roof rail and at the brake light trim fasteners above the rear window. These typically show up as wet headliners or leaks running down the rear glass. I guess it’s possible, if the truck is sitting at the right angle, for a leak to run down the c pillar and onto the rear floor without showing other leak symptoms.

Click to expand...

I'm liking the theory less and less.

I said I was going to wait for the two replacement parts to come in before I would inundate my truck. Nature had other plans, and we got a steady rain all morning. Not the torrential downpours we had before, but enough that I thought I should check under the sill plates.

The passenger side felt damp to me, but it might have been in my head. I mean... it's still raining out. I could take some moisture in there with me. I wiped my hands before sticking them in there, but who knows. It was enough to get me motivated, so I pulled off the plastic trim and carpet under the rear driver-side seat, and the wall just above the wet spot was bone dry. Then I pulled the plate from the floor that locks the rear seat support (and carpet) in. Feeling underneath, there is a distinctly wet spot right over the plug that Loup (page 17 of this thread) identified as one of the sources of his leak. But here's the thing... I haven't driven anywhere in rain since I got the truck back. There is no way in hell rain was splashing up from the driveway through that plug. Something else is going on.

I left all the trim off and put a couple layers of blue shop towel between the carpet and that plug. I'll check it when the rain stops (it's supposed to rain on and off all weekend) and see how wet it gets.

Loup said:

EvanM, LouP here, While you have the L/R oval plug exposed, why not just seal it and after seal cures, continue with your paper towel test. In my case, I had driven several miles in heavy rain and pretty flooded/puddled road.

Again in my case, I had removed ALL the plastic trim, floor door sills, and the ones across the rear panels under the folded seat and I was able to feel around that back panel and there was no evidence at all of damp carpet/sponge padding.

Click to expand...

So, turns out I was a bit mistaken. I went back around 2:30pm and was surprised to find the paper towel over that plug was dry, and there was a puddle of water slightly further back. It must be dripping down from somewhere, but dripping clean enough it's not leaving a wet spot on the back wall. The plug didn't really make much sense... the truck has been sitting on a flat gravel driveway all day.

I called Honda just to update my service guy, and he says he's going to escalate the issue there to his manager, who he thinks will involve a regional supervisor. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that I didn't buy from this Honda dealership, but I have mostly kept my salesman from the other dealership in the loop as well.

As far as sealing the plugs: I don't truly have everything exposed- the rear seats are still in, so all that carpet it still looped through the back wall. My approach so far has been to inspect but not repair. I know others disagree here, and to each his own. For myself: I don't work for free, especially not doing work I have already paid for, but also this way there is no chance any of this can come back on me or anything I have done to the truck. I'm still under factory warranty and lemon mileages. If it were otherwise, I'm sure I would be thinking about trying to keep the truck dry at all costs.