Removing Soaked Carpet from a 2006 Mustang

Overview

My 2006 Ford Mustang V6 developed a serious water leak problem after sitting outside during California’s rainy season. Water came through the dash and soaked the carpet completely. In this video, I’m pulling out the entire interior carpet to assess the damage and figure out what caused the leak. Apparently this is a known defect where debris can build up in the dash channels and cause water to overflow into the interior.

Key Moments

• Discovering water damage in the carpet and padding underneath
• Finding the leak source near the A-pillar area through the dash
• Removing seats with just four bolts per seat
• Taking out center console (just two screws in the back)
• Pulling interior panels that simply clip off
• Dealing with a tricky carpet section that loops over the transmission hump
• Finding minor surface rust on the floor pan
• Discovering a disconnected aftermarket alarm system from a previous owner

Full Transcript (Edited)

Alright, so this is my 2006 Ford Mustang V6, and today I am actually working on a serious problem. The car sat outside during the rainy season here in California, and some water came in through here and leaked into the interior through the dash right here. It soaked up the carpet completely.

Apparently there’s a defect on these cars that allows water to go through some channels in the dash and overflow into the interior. I heard it could be caused by build-up of debris in the channel. Right now what I’m working on is getting this carpet out so I can at least see if I can salvage it. I probably will not—I’ll probably order a replacement. But I’ll take advantage that it’s a sunny day and see if I can have it dry up, then spray it with some kind of mold control agent.

Given that these carpets have padding on the bottom that’s soaked and destroyed, I think I’m just going to replace the whole entire carpet, or rip out those supports. Once I have this out, I’ll take a look and see if any damage was done to the interior. Looks like there’s really minor rust, so I think I’ll be okay. I’m probably going to spray it with some rust inhibitor just to prevent any further damage.

Right now what’s holding me back is this little piece of carpet that loops over here. I’ve got to take this front panel off that has these screws to see if I can disconnect it, or if the carpet just has to come out. It has a small connection—I’m assuming it has to be kind of lifted out in that direction.

Overall, I’m actually quite impressed with the simplicity of this interior. I was able to rip everything out with just a couple of tools. Most of the panels literally just clipped off. With the exception of this center console that you see over there—having two screws in the back here—it just lifted off like that. The back seat clipped off, all the interior panels here clipped off, and the carpet is literally just being held in by the clipped cover and these little hooks that hold it in place. So it’s pretty easy, except for that part right there that’s causing everything to be delayed.

I took the seats out—there’s four bolts for that. All the interior panels come out easily. This is the center console. These little pieces come out and go on this side right here—they just come out. Everything comes up really easily.

This one I have dangling here because some previous owner added this disconnect switch for an alarm system that’s no longer being used. I’m curious what I’m going to do with that, because I really don’t like these aftermarket alarm systems. Like I said, this center console just literally came unhooked on the bottom, and then you slide it off like that.

I’m going to keep working on this and I’ll give an update once I have the carpet out.