MUST READ. leak problem

[Stone]

Geez I thought getting my gas tank replaced was a bother I am not sure if I even want to go check since I can't say I have noticed a smell in my car but then again I am/was a smokerso it may cover the smell ahh well I hope someone finds a nice simple fix to help everyone out since this seems to be an expanding issue.

This ad is not displayed to registered or logged-in members. Register your free account today and become a member on Mustang Forums!

[Vicstang]

Hello, everybody, glad to be here! This is my first post. I'd like to thank all you guys/gals for posting your information and experiences. It means a lot to me, as my car is brand new, and I don't want to wait to warterproof it. Gotta do something quick before it mildews.

I just picked up a new 2006 Premium GT, and I'm very happy with it. Its a far better car than I expected, in MANY, many ways. Overall, I think its better designed and built than my son's 99 Cobra. Right after I bought it, I found this thread on the net. Next thing that happened was, I got caught in some rain. I didn't even have a chance to implement some things I learned here in this thread! It wasn'ta really heavy rain, and certainly not nearly enough to fill up the doors to the hinge level. When I got home, I checked the carpet near the access door, and sure enough, it was wet. Brand new car, right off the showroom floor, just two days earlier. Didn't even have 300 miles on it yet.

I'm not totally dissapointed, just concerned. Every car has problems, even very expensive cars. Part of being a car fanatic is being willing to identify and correct what the factory could not, or would not fix. I'm not saying that is ok, but thats what fanatics do. Some guys know all the ins-and-outs of ridding an old Jag of its latent faults, etc, thats what car nuts are like. We find the idiosyncrasies, and attack them pre-emptively. I'm going to check/silicone all the areas that have been mentioned-
1. The wiring penetrations through the firewall, just inside the passenger wheel well cover
2. The lower windshield edge seal, where the weatherproofing also wraps around the wiper posts
3. The seam between the passenger floorboard, and the fender, or outboard edge of the car.
4. I don't want to take my door apart yet, but if the above doesn't adress the issue, then a door-ectomy seems like the next step.

There have been several possible water entry points identified, both by owners and dealers, and it is possible that there are multiple areas that can potentially be the cause. But from reading this thread, it seems this always happens on the passenger side, so if it was strictly a door seal problem, or mirror-to-door seal issue, or a plugged drain issue, it should show up on both sides of the car, right? But no one reports driver's side water, so its probably something specific to just the passenger side only, like the grommet. The floor seam has been found to be leaking in more than one car. Why wouldn't that type of floor seam leak occur on either side? Maybe some process on that side is different, done by a different machine, or done by old one-eyedCharlie, who should have retired years ago? Maybe he just does the seals on the passenger side.

I called Power Ford in Tustin, CA, and the service advisortold me that he has NEVER SEEN THE PROBLEM, EVER! <cough, cough, wheeze, COUGH, cough, COUGH> He told me I am the first one! Hah hah hah, very funny!

Maybe a lot of people don't even know their carpet is wet down there. I wouldn't even have known to check it down there after a rain, if I hadn't stumbled accross this thread. My guess is, ALL S197s are affected in one way or another, but just some people haven't noticed it, or maybe some Stangs accidently got sealed correctly from the factory.

And now we hear that Ford offers ONE payment credit to shut up about it? Its clear that taking the problem to the "stealership" is a complete waste of time, as they must be taking special Ford "quiet pills", and they will wear you out with endless service visits until you either croak, or dry up and blow away. This is too bad, becauseIlove my country, and I still love the historical, all-American, Ford Motor Co. I really want them to succeed, and feel sorry for them as they teter on the brink of extinction. (In related news, I heard Mually recently canceled his Lexus order) Toyota is heading for #1, and Ford is sucking wind, and "taking on water". (Pun intended!) Camrys don't leak, but I don't want a Camry, I want a really great, exciting Mustang that don't leak. I don't want our domestic manufacturers to go bankrupt, and I don't want to have to drive foriegn cars. I'd rather push my domestic, than drive foreign. Evidently, the lost sales from this issue becoming public knowledge is a greater liability $than paying off victims for their silence. Its a numbers game, and we lose. So we fix it ourselves, and forgive them for being stupid liquid engineers, I guess. Thank God for this forum, where we canshare information, and hash out a fix, or several fixes on our own. Information is power, thank God for the internet!

Anyway, thats long enough for a first post.Cheers to all, and havea great 2007!

F-ind
O-ur
R-ain
D-amage!

[mail906]

ORIGINAL: Vicstang

... When I got home, I checked the carpet near the access door, and sure enough, it was wet. Brand new car, right off the showroom floor, just two days earlier. Didn't even have 300 miles on it yet ...

I agree with many of the point you have made here, however - there is no excuse for a brand new vehicle that is not water tight. Ford needs to spend more time on the fundamentals and less time on engineering the cost out of its products (cheap carpets; razor thin paint coverage on perimeter surfaces; underhood wiring tape that cannot withstand normal operating temperatures, etc.). There is not one person on these forums - myself included - who would not have gladly paid a couple hundred dollars more for a water tightvehicle that hadthese foolish errors corrected at the factory.

Ford needs to step up and acknowledge its product problems. [Where are all the Ford engineers on this one?]

[McBudd]

After taking it to the dealer TWICE and after arguing with them AGAIN that it was not my sunroof, they finally found that my leak was coming from a bad seal on the passager side of the winshield. Have not had any rain to make sure that they got it right this time.

[phunnyguy]

i live in calif socal to be exact and am subscribing to this thread...i will check these areas when i get the car cleaned again or when it rains one of the two times a year...even though i livein a fiarly dry climate she is my daily driver and for what ipiad the car shoudl not leak end of story...even if i live where it rains very little......thanks guys

[elzebub]

I am ready to order my 07 GT, but I must say this issueis starting to give me second thoughts, not because of the leak specificly, most new model cars have a glitch or two, but what is concerning me is Fords inability to fix the problem, or worse yet, their refusing to even say there is a problem, I don't want to plunk down 28 large and then have a car that has a problem that cannot or will not be fixed, I guess I will just hold off for a while, I love the Stang, I 'll just wait and see what happens, there isn't any other car I want, so I'll wait. [&o]

[Vicstang]

ORIGINAL: MdnytRider

Ok, I'm hopeful I may have sealed the water leak. I removed the passenger side inner wheel well behind the tire. There is a pair of grommets there where a big wiring harness and the antenna come through the firewall (see the picture). Yesterday, I laid inside the car while the wife sprayed water on the right side of the car and it looked like water was coming in there. So today I spread clear silicone around the grommets, waited for it to cure and sprayed water on it again. So far, no water inside.

I'm curious though, how many people have noticed this problem only when parking their car facing uphill. I think it would lend some credence to my theory if it didn't happen when the car was parked facing downhill, as the water would run away from the grommet on the firewall.

Also, if anyone else decides to try this method, let me know if it works for you too.





[IMG]local://upfiles/48028/D4415FF5258A490FB43B89831CA2BB86.jpg[/IMG]

Now way was I going to wait for a TSB, or take my car back and forth to the stealership so they can jack me around and make me tired and want to give up, with their ineptness. Been there, done that. Not for me. I like my car so much, I decided to try and address this issue myself. My car is still new, and I'm not going to let it get moldy, and spoil my experience of what is otherwide aGREAT car!

MdnytRdr, I tried this very thing, had the wheel well cover removed, interior covers, etc, and had watersprayed atthe firewall, wheelwell, windshield, at various angles. One thing that occured to me as I was doing this is: Cars have so many seams, wall penetrations, etc, that you could probably make ANY car leak if you sprayed water too forcefully, or in a way that would not occur in real world driving.

Its kinda like this: If you "want" water inside the car, you can make it happen with the garden hose, depending on how hard, and where, you apply the water. Its possible to make water enter the car by applying waterupward at odd angles, such as would never happen in real world driving, unless you drove into a lake!When you do your water testing, you need to think about how the wheels kick up the spray, how water drips down off the windshield, how the wind pushes water into the cowl vent slots, etc, and try to imitate those scenarios. Its important not tocome to false conclusions because you are spraying the water directly into a seam, grommet hole, or what-have-you!

Another thing that became apparent, is that we may have S197 leaks from a variety of factors, floor seams, winshield seals, loose grommets, etc. Some people have water dripping on their gem module, but I don't know how many are having this specific area getting wet. There may be more than one way in that an S197 will leak, however, its generally concluded thatmostleaks are from the same source. the common thread seems to be thewiring harness grommetinside the wheel well, am I right? I'm actually not sure, just thought I'd throw that out there to get people talking more. We need to colaborate on this to get it resolved!

In the case of water coming down the windshield, past the winshield cowl, you would end up with water just below the big wiring harness bootin the p/s wheel well, on that shelf-like horizontal surface just below the boot. As has been stated before, there is a drain from the windshield wipers area, seen as a little black down spout just inside the engine bay, on the passenger side. The "down spout" releases its water onto the horizontal "shelf". That is one possible source of water building up on this shelf. Then, inside the wheel well, the tires may kick up spray onto this shelf, that is the possible second source of water here. Sure, thereis a wheelwell cover, that presumably would prevent the tire spray from landing on the shelf, but if you look at its design, it does not seal in any way, not on any of its sides, and its not a far stretch to conclude that it does very little to quell wheel spray. So, there are two possible sources of water building up in this "shelf" area, just below the big wiring harness boot, the wiper area drain, and possible tire spray. I can't say for sure, but I would need a wind tunnel and apply water while the car is in "motion", with little cameras mounted inside the wheelwellto tellfor sure. If the water builds up in this area as the car is moving forward through some rain, it may not drain off the shelf fast enough, and build up just enough to leak through the grommet, and come down on the inside of the car, both underneath and on top of the rubber padding, but below the carpet. Or, maybe it is just coming down the firewall as MdnytRdr says,flowing over the boot, and getting in that way. Either way, its a good idea to eliminate this harness boot and antenna grommet as possible sources.

This boot areais the only place I saw water entering my new 06 coupe while water was being sprayed on it, so I'm starting with that. Note that when the boot area was being sprayed, the water was not actually being sprayed directly at the boot/body connection. I think any boot would leak if you sprayed driectly at it like that, which is not the way water moves around inthere in real world conditions. If anything, it may "pool up" there, as its simultaneously draining, but I don't think water is ever spraying directly at the boot/body connection. Suffice to say, that I got water inside my car from this area, just by spraying the body near the boot, and allowing the water to pool up, on the shelf, which is just below the boot. This may be possible in real world driving conditions, as water is coming through the wiper area drain, cowl vent slots, and possible wheel well tire spray, all building up on the shelf area, or flowing over the boot,before it makes its way to the ground.

In the paint dept of Home Depot, they have this sealant stuff, that supposedly adheres to both rubber and metal.Before I found that stuff, I read a bunch of silicone tube labels. A lot of silicones were said to adhere to various subtances, such as wood, ceramic, metal, asphalt, etc, but no where was rubber ever mentioned. They didn't have any general purpose silicones, just a bunch of specialty ones. I wanted the sealant to stick to the rubber boot as well as the body, sopassed on the specialty silicones, and got this stuff called Loctite "Stik-n-Seal" instead. It comes in 1 oz tubes, $2.88 each. Iusedtwotubes of this stuff to completely coat the boot, grommet, body area, etc. If anyone else decides to do this,youcanpeel the wiring harness boot back out a little bit from the body, and you can see an area where the boot is supposed to seal to the body penetration. I put a bunch of sealant on this surface, shoved it back into the body, and then also all around the outside of the boot/body connection, just for good measure. Don't forget to coat the antenna grommet/cable, as well. Bring some rags, 'cuz it gets all over your hands.

Now I just need a rainstorm, for some real world conditions testing!~

[celenztah]

Since this is the "officially" linked S197 info thread, I thought I'd post a quote from the other major water leak issue thread into this one. Each of these two major water leak threads appear to be followed by differring groups of folks (understandably so). And I don't mean to further contribute to any confusion due to the existence of two such threads covering the same topic. [8D]

But I believe most of you will agree that this is a very important update.

ORIGINAL: bascho

I will post a PDF of the TSB once it'sissued. That way you guys with leaks can print it off and take it into the dealer.

[Vicstang]

Great news!

But somehow, I don't think the TSB should be limited to the cowl, because some people have found other entry points, such as floor seams. Ideally, the TSB should cover ALL possible water entry points, not just the cowl. But its still really great to see Ford taking steps. Long live Ford, our truly American manufacturer. (Yes, I know I'm a little nuts!)

[celenztah]

ORIGINAL: celenztah

OK - Looking pretty good now. After my 3rd dealership visit, I finally had a decent mother nature test. I was able to leave my car exposed to steady, medium strength rain for around 24 hours straight. I even took my car into the dealership for another situation (minor stuff and a free detail - another story not worth going into) in moderately strong rain while driving through numerous splashy puddles along the way..... NO WATER in floorboard! I even had the dealership take a look under the kick panel and NO WATER!

BUT.... I still need to drive in HEAVY rain with standing road water, etc. to be more fully convinced. But as of this update, I am 85%+ convinced that the leak has been stopped.

The unusual part is that my dealership is, in the case of my car anyway, convinced that the leak was largely resultant from the collapsed seal in weatherstripping at the passenger mirror base (that was visit #2 which did not fully stop the leak) and more so, the "weathersheet" that needed securing in the passenger door (visit #3). Visit #1 dealt mainly with re-alligning a grommet in the firewall (this comes closer to the propsed TSB in the works). It is possible that all three "fixes" combined have brought about the positive results I experienced in this recent "test".

I know it seems odd that my leak could result from the door initially, but water can travel in mysterious ways and wind up in places far from the source. We'll see after the next, heavier duty mother nature test.

At least I'll soon enough have a TSB (as will all of us affected) to fall back on should in fact my leak still exist.

For now, though, having been very exposed to weather that certainly would've ordinarily caused water to appear in my passenger side... and finally having no water show.... I am happy again!

I'll still update here once exposed to the heavier duty mother nature test.