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Old Car, New Mold

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I have a 10-year-old Miata. After about eight years, the gasket around the driver's side door began to leak when it rained. Annoying, but not fatal. Recently I've noticed a slightly musty smell when I get into the car in the morning. So what to do? Rather than fixing the gasket (which requires replacing the roof as far as I can tell), I took a dehumidifier that I borrowed from Mike Zintel (the PUM of the .NET Compact Framework) and set it up in the car to suck as much moisture out of the car as possible. Once that's done, I'll go through the car with some mold-killing substance (probably bleach) and clean. Then I'll put some silicone sealant around the gasket to see if I can staunch the source of the water. Here's to keeping our fingers crossed.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 18, 2004
    miata.net is a great resource, a quick search over there shows lots of possible fixes.
  • Anonymous
    December 19, 2004
    I've looked and they have some suggestions, but it seems to come down to "most of them don't work." In any event, I'll give them a try. Thanks for the pointer.
  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2004
    Trial three now. First and second trials I used an acrylic-silicone caulk that was supposed to dry clear. After 72 hours, it never set. I've now switched to pure silicone caulk.
  • Anonymous
    December 27, 2004
    http://www.storesonline.com/site/598452/product/BG%20708

    "Frigi-Fresh"
  • Anonymous
    December 30, 2004
    Weatherstripping and 3M auto trim cement?

  • Anonymous
    December 31, 2004
    The pure silicone caulk seems to have worked.
  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2005
    When you get to the part of "getting the stench out," you may want to buy a bottle of Febreze as opposed to using bleach. Geting the interior detailed is also not a bad idea.
  • Anonymous
    January 12, 2005
    I had a Z3 that started leaking like that after 2 years. 8 sounds pretty good to me. :-)