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Water leaking into car when stationary

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snoopios

snoopios

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 24, 2018
Messages
463
Hi all,

As the title suggests, I have water leaking into my car and I believe it's coming from either the cable grommets between the rear hatch and the main body or the rear hatch mounts.

Does anyone know how to remove the roof liner (without breaking anything) so I can get to the rear hatch bolts, take everything off, seal it and then put it back together again?

2020-10-16 10.51.08.jpg

2020-10-16 10.51.03.jpg


2020-10-16 10.52.38.jpg


2020-10-16 10.52.47.jpg
 
It’s quite an easy job, just take your time as everything is old. Start by pulling down the door seals, remove the interior light and sun visors. There will be a couple a bolts underneath. remove the A pillar covers (they just have clips and then slide the bottom out) and there will be a push clip in each corner of the headliner. Then the front should hang down a bit. From memory the are a couple of big clips on the side and then 3 or 4 along the rear edge, they need a bit of a pull or if you have any trim removal plastic tools, you can push them in and lever it down.
 
So, update to this as I have finally found the actual problem so if anyone has any issues with a misty car, water in the rear seats / bins, I'd suggest checking this out.

It turns out that the rear light plastic access cover screw plug (not sure what else to call it) was causing the leak. Water was pooling around the plugs nearest to the front of the car and then leaking through the hole (because the rubber gaskets were completely shot), dripping down onto the harness pretty much directly underneath it and then flowing down the harness (not within it as far as I can tell) and then trickling into the rear seats / bins.

Here are a couple of videos:
The fix
  1. I located the correct plugs (which are the ones closest to the front of the car and they have a white translucent plastic appearance
    2021-07-12 08.54.42.jpg

  2. I removed the plug on each side. They're a bit of a weird design as the retaining "clips" hinge about the vertical of the clip so they kind of rotate around the centre axis of the clip - see the pictures below
    2021-07-12 09.00.19.jpg
    2021-07-12 09.00.28.jpg

  3. I then removed the black rubber gaskets (which are completely shot) and cleaned everything up
    2021-07-13 11.55.45.jpg

  4. I then applied silicone around the hole in the chassis where the plugs go
    2021-07-12 09.24.46.jpg

  5. Then I pushed the plug in really carefully so as not to create a gap anywhere by essentially squeezing all of the slicone out
    2021-07-12 09.25.20.jpg

  6. I then cleaned up the silicone to ensure no water can pool in the little divets around the perimiter of the plug / silicone and then left it to dry for a few hours (luckily it was warm so it dried pretty quickly)
    2021-07-12 09.26.03.jpg
So far, since I've done it, I can't see anymore water in the car. I'm going to leave it and test it a bit more before sticking the interior back in but so far so good!
 

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