Excuse the simplicity of the question, but after a car wash and a few days should the windows still get wet when you roll them up and down? Do I have a leak or does it just take awhile to dry out, and if so whats a reasonable period. New car, I just don’t want to find I have a leak somewhere later. Both windows, both sides of the car.
Check and see if the door drains at the bottom of doors are plugged.
Tester
New car-warranty- use it
Most cars don’t do this, but some do. This was common on the first-generation Acura MDX, for instance, where even the inside of the windows came back up wet.
What car is this? Does this happen after rain as well?
Every vehicle I’ve owned did this. Water inside the door takes longer to evaporate then outside.
No problem like that here. It’s about three miles to the car wash, so I’m driving that far at least and I have no problems the next day. I’m either heating or using the AC so maybe that helps. Two days is sort of a problem if the windows are still wet.
None of my cars have ever done that. They’d only have moisture on them immediately after a rain. Not even the next day, provided it hadn’t rained in 24 hours or were parked in the garage. I’ve always presumed any water that gets past the seals just drain out the bottom of the door, so it can’t re-appear on the surface of the glass.
But every car/window design is different. It may be that your car’s design is a super efficient seal so rain water gets trapped and stays there, rather than draining down through the door. So next time you roll the window down and back up again, some of that trapped water sticks to the glass. And this would be more likely to occur if the car was brand new. So that’s not something I’d worry about. It’s probably just that your car’s engineers decided to make the seal overly watertight is all. Over time and rolling the windows up and down it will start to act like a normal car and the water will pass by that seal and drain out the bottom of the door instead of sticking to the glass.
You car doesn’t happen to be a VW ? VW’s are known to have very tight seals. My old VW Rabbit, it was difficult to shut the door without rolling down the window b/c the seals were so air tight.
OP where do you live? Cold weather means slow drying.
My cars all do this after being washed. Usually will take a day depending on the weather for everything to dry out.
Tester nailed this one . . . check the drain holes. No vehicle should retain water in a cavity like that, gonna be a rust-out in a short time. Lay on the ground and look for the drain holes and clean them out. Rocketman
I wonder if the OP opted for dealer-applied undercoating.
A new car shouldn’t have plugged-up drain holes in the doors–or anywhere else on the body–but badly-done aftermarket undercoating could certainly screw things up.
+2 for VDC above.
Good point VDC! Rocketman
I think the water is being retained in the belt line weather strips and not evaporating due to the cold weather. If there was 4 inches of water in the the door it would be noticeable when opening and closing the door.