Water in the boot wells

[Guest Ken]

This topic has been aired a few times, http://www.bimmersport.co.nz/forums/index....68&hl=drain for example.

Ever since I bought my pre f/l 323i I have been plagued by water in the wells on both sides of the boot space. I went through all of the usual processes, renewed the taillight gaskets, checked that water was draining properly from the sunroof drains: http://www.bmwe30.net/cgi-bin/datacgi/data...&Section=00

After all of this I still got water in the boot whenever it rained! Today I believe I found the culprit - parts 18 and 20 in this diagram: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?mo...hg=51&fg=20

My pictures show the said items. Most of these grommets had become brittle with age and had started to fall to pieces. The effect of this is that rain could get in the holes where the grommets press into, dribble down the inside of the bodywork then into the wells in the boot.

I've ordered some new ones and fervently hope that this is the final chapter in my water saga!!!

Broken grommet:

After removal of Air Outlet Moulding:

Closeup of where water was coming from:

[TronSpec 0]

Had the same problem. But I just drilled holes in the bottom of anything that would retain water and kept an eye out for early rust indications

Edited October 28, 2006 by MrHamWallet

[kiwipetrolhead 1]

And use POR15 paint if you want the perfect solution for long term (permanent) rust prevention.

www.POR15.co.nz

Paul

[Mike 1]

Cheers for posting that up Ken.

I've had the same problems and found the clips were pretty wasted and the begins of cancer.

Think I caught it just in time, bit of rust convertor, POR15 and some silicon and hopefully that should be the end of it. Also got some new clips to replace the busted ones. Knew it was to good to be true when I couldn't find any rust on my car.