Water is everywhere. It’s in our bodies, the air we breathe, the oceans that surround us—and sometimes, strangely, the door of an otherwise well-sealed luxury sedan. A video recently posted to YouTube shows what happens when the door of a Mercedes-Benz CLS decides to serve double duty as a starboard ballast tank.
Contrary to what you may have heard, a car’s door—especially that of a $75,000 luxury four-door coupe—is definitely not supposed to have gallons of water sloshing around inside of it at all times. If a car is flooded out, then yes, you’d expect to have water draining out from all sorts of nooks and crannies. But from the looks of it, this particular Benz simply had a nice long soak in your garden-variety rainstorm. It’s pretty surprising to watch Thing unleash a literal torrent of water when he reaches down and pulls the drain plug at the bottom of the door.
A quick note about that plug: Every car features some sort of drain in the bottom of the door that allows rainwater to escape. Your doors and windows are well-sealed, but water is an invasive, pernicious bastard, so manufacturers have to give it somewhere to go when it inevitably seeps into the panel. Some cars have a series of small holes under the door, which themselves can get clogged with debris, while others are equipped with removable plugs.
Even after a massive downpour, the majority of cars doors won’t be so thoroughly filled like this one. This mini-Niagara was formed during the Ice Age when a particularly bad seal and blocked-up drainage holes allowed water to flood the door from the inside out, the flow of which was likely aided by the car’s sloping roofline. A combination of Mercedes’ build quality and modern door construction techniques kept it all from leaking into the interior before the owner was able to pull the plug.
If you hear water sloshing around in your door and keep forgetting to clear out the drainage system, fear not—it will make its own hole eventually.