where is the leak coming from ?
 

I have an 06 x type estate .
I managed to stop water ingress into the boot space by sealing the lights.
Now i have a leak into the passenger side rear foot well .
Has anybody got any ideas where its leaking from please ?

thank you

Plugged moonroof drains

Mike Frayne, like Dell said, most likely plugged sunroof drains. If you want to clear them, I would start with opening up your sunroof and then pouring a little bit of say Lysol (or other antibacterial cleaning product like you would use on the floor). You don't need a lot, but you will want to pour a little bit in the back 2 corners of the sunroof. From there, if you look down into the corner, you should see a small opening. This is the drain.hole. As I recall, this car only has 2 drains, both are in the back corners of the sun roof. You can then use a can of compressed air (like you would use to clean your keyboard) and then using some masking tape, build up the end of the straw so it is bigger than the drain opening in the sun roof. From here, you press the straw against the drain hole and give it a quick squirt. May require multiple applications. This should clear the blockage. You want quick squirts as this is going to give you what is referred to as a "water hammer" effect and it will help move the blockage. Once you get things cleared, you can take some water and pour it into the water catch area around the sunroof and make sure that both tubes are clear. You should see the water drain out by the rear tires (a spot on each side of the car).

As Thermo said, short bursts. There have been mentions of sustained compression blowing the drain tubes loose, which is a real problem.

thank you for your help. unfortunately the car doesnt have a sunroof.. roof bars maybe ?

Thank you for your advice...unfortunately the car doesnt have a sunroof . roofbars maybe ?

Mike, to get what you are describing then, I can only think of 2 possibilities. The less likely one is that the door seal for the rear door (most likely) is bad and it is allowing water in. I would say to open the doors on that side and make sure that all the boots are in their correct locations. You may have a boot that has gotten bumped and is now allowing water to flow down the body and into the car.

The more likely situation is that you have water coming in the dash cooling system and it is running down the firewall, under the carpeting in the front and you are simply seeing it puddle more in the rear of the car (would you happen to park with your car pointing uphill by chance?). It is a common issue that the filter under the valance at the base of the windshield will become dislodged and this allows water to flow into the interior of the car and then this goes straight down to the blower motor. From there, it falls on to the floor, getting the carpeting wet. I would say to remove the windshield wipers and then remove the valance. From there, you will see the filter and make sure that it is properly seated. Probably a good time to replace the filter since you have everything apart. See what we find at this point. part of what makes this such a problem is the valance will loose its seal where it rests on the windshield. This allows the wipers to push water down into the trough that has the filter.

If the filter looks good and is in its proper place, the only other thing that I could say is to look for some sort of fluorescent dye (coolant system dye?). Check to make sure that it won't damage your paint. But, from there, you can put some say at the top of the doors and then using a garden hose, spray some water on the car. From there, you can follow the glowing trail with a black light and see if you can spot where the water is entering the car at. You will not want to put much water on the outside of the car for fear of diluting the dye too much. So, it will be a bit of a trial and error game. From there, you will need to pull back the carpeting and trim in the area and see if you can spot any of the dye that is glowing.

The only other potential that I can think of (and you would have to do some research on this as I sold my X-Type many years ago) is to look under the car. It seems to me that there was a plug in this vicinity. It may be possible that you ran over something or through a deep puddle and this has dislodged that plug and this is allowing the under spray to get into the car.

Hi

I just bought an estate and the spare wheel well has an inch of water in it, , , Did you ever get any answers to your/our problem

Hi Mike

I had a similar problem in the front drivers side foot well. Spent ages checking the cabin air intake filter area and other places round the engine bay I thought it might be coming from. It does come in through the air inlet sometimes and I ended up siliconing around the aperture to ensure no water got down the back I also extended the top with a combination of bit of old plastic bar, silicone, ducktape and glue as my window cowl was letting water under and that prevented it getting in the top and entering the cabin. But it still came in I noticed one day straight after a storm, there was water on the door sill covering, it was coming in through the door gutter waste seal at the top and running down inside the door coming out at the bottom between the outside rubber seal and the cabin, had no where to go so filled the cockpit up. I ended up putting a plastic sheet inside the door deflecting any more water to the bottom drain plug that I had to remove and changed the gutter seal as it was badly bubbled anyway. Parking the car facing down a hill also made a difference at the time as the water ran down the hole if I parked facing up a hill it ran off daft as it sounds...

HOLY COW. . . I bought an Estate (one month ago . . late July 2020) I looked in the boot as the park aid wasn't working. . . . . I found a "Tide mark" up to the sender unit and 1" of water in there. I looked on this Forum and most people said, light seals, tailgate seal, ariel seal . . . . .

I let the water out and dried it up, fitted a sender unit and found the reversing bleeper to be almost silent. I started looking for it's position and removed the right rear panel (for changing the rear light bulbs) and found a black panel on the side of the car at bumper height. . . Mmmmm soaking wet . . my son-in-law appeared at that point and I said "look what I found. . .my leak" followed by "WTF is that" . . he works for a main dealer and said It's the air vent so you can close the doors"

If you look under the right corner of the car behind the rear wheel it's tucked up in that area . . . which I imagine is a massive water trap during wet weather. Water sprayed up from the rear wheel has nowhere to go.

I'm going to dry it and use windscreen sealer around it and hopefully problem solved.