Water leak back end, estate 99

[bobhowes]

Hi Youall, Im Bob and have been a member of the Forum for some time but this is my first post, and of course its a problem. First let me introduce my car, its a white 1999 vsx estate and yes its petrol,( I can hear all you oil burners sigh.) and I have to say I wish it were an oil burner but down here in the far west country xms are as rare as lead floats, my previous car a bx tzd is retired very sick with head ache but its still here. I am very pleased with this xm, which I have to say i never new xms existed until my mechenic son in law suggested I look at one his friend had for sale, that makes me now another xm nut. I find it hasent got the poke of the old bx which is surprising, possibly due to the extra weight? Now to my problem, when digging up the floor covering in the rear I found it was soaking wet with very clean water, my question is where is the most likely place its coming from and how to fix it? I will try to get some pics posted on here a s a p. Bob.

[Dieselman]

Hi Bob.
Check the sunroof drain tube isn't split as it passes into the D pillar.

The reason you find the XM a bit slow compared to the BX TZD is that it has less torque and weighs more.

It's a myth that there aren't any XM's in the west Country, it's just that Peter and John have them all salted away...

[xmexclusive]

Hi Bob

There are a number of ways that water can get in the rear footwell.
Dieselman has covered one of them.
Rain water can come in via the rear lights, the tailgate and door rubber seals as well as the sun roof.
Inside the car the rear washer feed can leak.
It is also just possible that floor pan corrosion or a missing under floor rubber bung is letting road water in.
Badly fitted towbar wiring is also occasionally the source of road water.
Finally the previous owner might have run through deep water.
Finding the actual source is not always easy.
Have a look at the fit of the sunroof first. Check that it sits neatly into the roof opening.
Does the seal round the glass have any obvious damage.
The roof glass seal is not expected to be waterproof just to minimise the water inflow.
The sunroof tray drains should then keep the car dry.
We will come back to checking the drains later as access is not that easy.
Next thing to check for is leakage in from the rear doors.
There is a rubber "V" drain across the top of each rear door frame.
It is fixed to the chassis and the top edge of the door closes against it.
These sometimes need regluing to the chassis if they fail and feed water into the car.
On the passenger side the rear windscreen washer feed runs through the hollow centre of the top of the chassis door frame.
The tube can occasionally can split. In both cases water makes its way down the "B" pillar to the rear footwell.
In checking out wet and damp in an XM it pays to know the floor material construction.
The carpet has contains an impermiable backing and under this there is a thick (20mm) open cell foam underlay.
This foam layer also has an impermiable layer as its top surface.
The result is that the open cell nature of the foam lets is suck up very large volumes of water and also move it about the car.
Much of this will be hidden as the impermiable layers can prevent carpet being wet while the foam is soaking.
The reverse can also happen, carpet wet foam dry.
Check out the boot area next, first by the tailgate ease up the floor covering to get at the foam.
Feel the underside of this accross the back edge.
Foam is wet here if water is coming in at the boot end of the car.
If there is water at the back edge then fold down the back seats.
Then check for wet at the front edge of the foam and on the chassis under the seats.
If the whole of the boot foam is flooded it can feed forward and occasionally get as far as the rear floor wells.
For more direct feeds to the foot well first feel the underside of the door trim where it butts to the inside of the door.
This is where the route of water if the door membrane is leaking (2.5XCL's reminder in the post below).
Then remove the plastic cover trims from the door frame by the rear seat bases.
This should enable you to determine if the wet is coming down the "B" or the "C" pillar.
That should the guide you upto the leak source.
Sunroof pipe and blockages have been covered in a recent series of posts.
The hardest bit of this is drying out the foam because of the volumes of water that it can hold.
Leave it wet long term and rust can set in at the chassis joints.

John

[2point5XCL]

Hi Bob,
Ah the BX TZD, wonderful car had an estate for over 10 years. Bought it accident damaged 12 months old with low mileage and had it repaired. Sold it over 10 years later for spares with minimal spend on mostly service items, for spares, when the tailgate hinge mounts on the body succumbed to rust caused by internal condensation. I reckon it had the minimum annual cost of ownership of any car i had up to then. It also seemed to handle even better with a full complement of passengers than with driver alone.
But I digress, another possible cause of wet rear floor in the XM is water running down behind a door card due to a faulty membrane on the door panel following repair of window regulators or other door components.

Roy.

[bobhalliday]

Hi Bob.

I had this problem on my Estate and it took ages to find the fault and longer to dry it out!
First to dry it out I removed the drivers seat and eased it over to the passenger side as far as I could, and also removed as much as possible of the rear seat on same side, I raised the carpet and foam as high as I could and removed the bung in the floor and had an electric heater with a fan on it running for a week! The foam holds gallons of water.
Next I checked for the fault and finally discovered that as I leaned into the rear door to lift out baggages, in a restricted part of my parking area, my shoulders had in time damaged the door seal and the sunroof drain trough above the doorway, so instead of rain water running down and out at the bottom of the doorway, the rain was getting into the seating area and floor. I glued the trough better to the frame and taped it up to make sure the rain water ran along it and down where it should.
I've had no bother with it since thank goodness as it was a real nightmare drying it all out.

Bob H

[Dieselman]

To dry carpets out just use newspaper, it works really well.

[robert_e_smart]

I have had to dry Xantia, XM and CX carpets on numeroud occassions. The XMs are the worst as the carpet is in once piece, not in 3 pieces like the Xantia and CX. The best hting is to get the carpet put, and hang it up, and let gravity do the work for you. When my XM had a leaky sunroof, only the rear carpet was wet, so I cut the carpet under the seats and removed it from the car to dry it.

[Dieselman]

I flooded my first XM twice and newspaper dried it up in a few days.

[bobhowes]

Hi to youall and thanks for answering my question, and for suggestions, lucky for me the water was in the rear and the carpet is easy to remove so took it out and draped it over the roof of the retired, sick BX TZD estate, very sunny day dried it out fine, im thinking that the leak won't be from the sun roof as its too far back, dont believe its road water because it was so clean, so have to look at rear lights, tail gate rubbers, etc, at the moment the carpet is raise a little above the metal floor, also some builders waterproof membrane is between floor and carpet and the car is garaged most of time. I am thinking of sitting in car when its raining heavy, which shoulden't be long to wait and see if i can see where water is coming in, probably a forlorn hope as have tried same thing with the Volvo estate I once owned ( long deceased. )and diden't find the leak, on that occasion after a lot of searching it was the sun roof. Luckily for me this XM has been well maintained and one owner so there is very little rust at least visible rust, the floor is sound so no water ingress from there, the only rusty bit was the metal plate that holds the spare wheel, caused by the water moving along up the foam backing, it stopped half way across the metal plate, the dry part was unaffected by rust, now its coated both sides with zink paint, just incase. Will let you know result, maybe some time though. Bob.(The ancient one)