For anyone who has water leaks - here are your solutions

[desertpierat]

Not to keep an old thread alive, but I just did my water shields last week. Keep in mind this was my first time attempting this, but I spent 1-2 hours per night after work. I started on Monday last week and finished up Thursday evening. Now that I know what I'm doing, I could probably cut that time in half, but I spent a lot of time going back and forth from the car to the computer to make sure I was doing everything right. I'd say if you were going to pay a shop to do the door seals, they should be going off the book time, which is typically 0.5 hrs to remove & reinstall the door trim panel, and another 0.5 hrs to clean and re-tape the water shield. The butyl tape should cost around $12/roll not including the shop's markup. If any clips break, expect to pay anywhere from $0.50 to $2.00-4.00 each depending on what clip broke.

On another note, my doors are still leaking, but it now appears to be due to the weatherstrips being worn out. Those are a bit salty from what I have seen.

[MLM]

Still here. My sunroof drain on the passenger side was disconnected behind the dash. That is where most of the water was coming in. Having reconnected it there is no more water coming in there. That repair took me an hour or so, but it was difficult to access. Pulling out the seat to dry the floorpan was much more involved.

[03-SteelBlueSLE]

UPDATE: after reading (skimming) those threads, yesterday...

1. I checked the other 3 footwells and the trunk. The trunk was dry but the footwells were ALL wet, especially the soaked driver-side rear.

2. So I took it for a worst-case scenario estimate at a local body shop. First, after a review of what I'd done so far, the appraiser said it would be "very expensive" to deal with the carpet and track down/fix whatever was leaking. Then she looked closer inside the engine area and pointed out rust holes in the upper frame on the sides above the wheel wells, and then rusting/'rotting' brake lines down around the radiator. She said I really should fix these danger items before dealing with the wet. Interestingly, she didn't try to get me in to fix the frame rust they could have done, but suggesting trading the car in. OTOH maybe she just didn't want to get her shop involved. But I figured she was an honest type so I asked if she knew of any dealers who weren't scammers. "No, they all are".

3. I still have no good idea of what all this would cost - wet fix, frame rust, brake lines and I've known for a while it needs front struts - but I figure it's WAY over what I'd be willing to pay and still end up with a 2003 car waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

4. So now I'm looking around online at max $6000 cars from say 2008. I'm not too worried about 100k+ because at 3.5k a year I've probably got max 35k left in me before I croak.

[bonneville_gal]

I had the same issue.. car I bought had water pooling behind driver's seat that had caused a rust hole all the way through the floor. Had to get both inside and outside (dual floor pan) patched and welded to pass its provincial safety inspection when I bought it. Lifted carpet figured that would dry it out.. no joy was wetter a week later so I started scratching my head. Previous owner had beaten his head against the wall trying to solve where water in driver side back seat was coming from. Found this post and had the AHA moment...mine has a sunroof so chances are it's the drainage hoses... As I figured tearing out the headliner and half the dash to get to the hose connection was above my pay grade, and my son the auto body tech is out of province, I opted for a different solution.

Had some RTV Gasket Maker silicone handy (match car color, supposed to withstand UV rays well). Set myself up, cleaned up everything around sunroof and protected the seats. By first sliding back the front of sunroof and applying a thick bead of silicone around front, then sliding sunroof forward and leaving back a bit lifted and finishing the bead around the sides and back, then bringing it down and cleaning up silicone to fill the sunroof channel properly and look nice and neat with a finger, removed excess etc (kinda like siliconing a tub surround) I filled the channel with RTV silicone so that the whole sunroof was totally water sealed. Reached forward into headliner above sunroof motor controls and pulled the 1 plug powering the sunroof controls, which disabled all the sunroof motor controls. Let it cure and waited to see if my back seat would dry out. Magic - It did!! So far so good car is staying dry been a month or so no further moisture inside car.

Now if you really like having a sunroof that opens and you live in a hot climate, this might not be the fix for you.. but I don't really care about having a sunroof that opens. I still have it for extra light, but if I'm hot I turn on the A/C and if it's cold (Manitoba) I am sure as heck not opening my sunroof all winter anyway.. so this works for me just fine. (Also avoids the possible issue where sunroof motor fails and it jams open in the tracks someday just before a rainstorm lol!) It would also be a way of just testing to see if it solves your water problems and just remove the silicone again later if you want to re-enable it if it turns out your water problems are from doors or other seals.

[03-SteelBlueSLE]

thanks bonneville_gal, i hope someone else will read your post and end up with a dry car. i traded mine in on a 2008 XXXXX, don't ask.