Traced leak in boot to sunroof rear drain | |
I have been battling a leak, the usual one in the boot, for over 2 weeks now.
Recently mounted a tow bar and those tend to leak into the spare wheel space as well, but I ruled that out. The hinge of the tailgate was (re)sealed and I checked the top rubber seal. All to no avail.
I was hesitant to disassemble the headlining, especially as there were no signs of moisture other than in the top right corner in the back. But having checked most of the other options that is what I did.
It's a bit of a pain, you need to remove the side pillars with clips that tend to break and the headlining itself is kinda vulnerable to dirty hands and cracks.
Above the left rear door there was some discoloring on the top of the headliner, so that seemed to indicatie there had been water up there.
Further dissassembly clearly showed the rear drain plastic cup was leaking between it and the aluminium gutter.
It was almost too easy to pull that plastic cup out, there was a bit of kit between it, but not much and clearly water was dripping onto the headliner there. This worked its way all the way to the back into the boot.
Not sure if I am missing a seal there, but there is no part to order for that as far as I know, so I used some kit to seal it up. Took me three attempts as it is hard to get the kit in there neatly and sufficient to seal.
In the end it seemed to work though. No water leaking between the aluminium and the plastic when pouring it into the sunroof gutter manually and it drip out of the drain at the underside of the car where it should
Still amazes me on how much water gathers from such a tiny leak. It adds up.
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