Water leak to passenger side AND driver side

[widap]

For a few weeks I had been experiencing water dripping onto the passenger side floor mat in my 3-year-old Yaris. It was dripping from a fan unit directly behind the glove box. At times it would just be an occasional drip, but other times (when blowing the fan hard through the floor vent, or when the car made a left turn) it would be a steady stream of water. Luckily I have rubber floor mats that allowed the majority of the water to pool. We've been receiving a lot of rain lately, so I assumed that rainwater had somehow gotten trapped inside the car and would eventually evaporate. At one point the problem did seem to correct itself for a few days, but then it came back. I then figured out, through trial and error, that the issue was actually tied to the AC unit--if I ran the AC for more than a few minutes on a particular day, the water leak would return. After poking around a bit on the Internet, including this website, I was able to correct the problem. The issue was worse when I turned a left corner--for whatever reason water wouldn't stream out during a right turn. The streaming water when turning a left corner was accompanied by a strange sound that I couldn't quite put my finger on (it wasn't just water sloshing around). I then spotted another blog that was able to help me better describe it: the sound of a rain stick. To solve the problem, I simply pulled up the corner of my carpet on the passenger side, closest to the center console. There is a black rubber hose leading from the fan unit, under the carpet, down through the floor. This is the AC condensation drain hose. Per several recommendations, I took a wire (I used a wire hanger that I had unraveled) and gently poked it up through the length of the hose. The hose is less than a foot long, so not difficult to navigate with the wire. I had a large plastic cup handy in case water came gushing out, as some folks had suggested. Nothing happened. I then attempted to blow hard on the end of the hose, but there was zero give. I then turned on the car and the AC, blew really hard again, and this time I could feel something give/dislodge. A flood of water (and a little dirt) came gushing out, and at that point air was streaming out of the hose as well. This air pressure presumably pushes out the water droplets, preventing the water from building up in the fan unit. Whatever foreign object that was blocking the hose may still be trapped up in the fan unit, but for now the problem has been resolved. Youtube has videos of exactly where this hose is located and what it looks like. I then immediately went out and purchased a Cabin Air Filter for approximately $20, because some folks had suggested that Toyota didn't supply this filter with their line of Yaris vehicles, and thus the lack of filter is what likely allowed the debris to enter the fan unit in the first place. Again, I found a video on Youtube showing how to remove the glove box and install the filter, which was actually fairly simple. Just be careful not to damage the little black arm that prevents the glove box from completely dropping down out of the dash. For now, problem solved, hopefully it doesn't return. But if it does, it should be a fairly quick fix...