defiance

So i isolated the dreaded water leak to the passenger side window weatherstrip retainer TSB 8-26-7, after pulling off right my fender and replacing all my cowl grommets with new ones. Ordered the part through ford, and it stopped the leak for about three weeks. Now its back in the same location. Somehow that brand new seal with the whole new plastic retainer is still failing to seal the water from entering the holes in the a pillar. I tried reseating it - that failed to fix it. My car has no warranty. After i spent weeks of taking out all the interior and carpet to dry everything and clean it, after heavy downpour tonight i have tons of water in the car once again. I am really tempted to say screw it and let it rot, I have invested too much time and money in this for the car to still leak. I am out of ideas, besides to shoot some foam down the holes in the a pillar.
Please, I need help.....I have no clue on what to do.

ssimaniac

Ahh, I had that infamous water leak. It was at the dealer for 10 times with over 30 days. They could never solve it. Finally, an engineer from Ford came out and they saw that the body wasn't properly sealed by the robot, guess it wasn't calibrated, so it left a hole.

Just saying it could be one of the causes, but that's the problem I had.

defiance

Do you happen to know where the hole was? I pulled the fender off and inspected all the welds and seals i could, after hosing it down for 15 min my car was dry. I just pulled my junction box off today after yesterdays rain and all the connectors are full of water......it must be getting in from the top somewhere, but i see no wet places above the box.

steve r

im sure you already did this but did you take the cowl off and clean out the firewall? where the cabin filter is

defiance

That was the first area i checked and it always remained clean, and my cabin air filter looks perfectly fine and is dry as a desert. The water is definitely entering from above the junction box. Once i removed the junction box, the top of the metal bracket that it attaches to is wet.

BlackBetty

From what I understand, the right-most cowl grommet (ie furthest to the passenger side) drains into an area that lets water get behind the SJB, even though the other cowl grommets drain into the cowl channel.

A friend and I will be attempting this repair on our cars tomorrow so I'll be sure to post up with the results.

Nuke

One other leak location which isn't a SJB wetter are the lower drain plugs, accessible and visible on the firewall below and just beyond the battery. These can clog and allow water to drain into the passenger compartment thru the cabin air filter. When you had the cowling off to do the TSB repair, you may have noticed debris in the bottom of the well if you were looking for it.

defiance

Nuke, i wish my leak was that simple, unfortunately its leaking from somewhere else as that are is completely clean and is draining correctly. Tomorrow i will be doing some testing with the water hose to see if i can figure out where exactly the water is entering the car.

FordService

Hi F0RD4LifE,

I can understand how frustrating that must be! Have you determined the source of the leak yet? If not, you may want to have your local dealer take a look and see what they can find, and you may want to have them search for your gas hand noise as well. If you have any concerns, feel free to let me know if I can help.

ssimaniac,

I am glad your dealer was able to send an engineer to diagnose your leak and resolve your issue!

~Natasha

poopile

You know, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that a Ford rep makes an appearance on the site like this. But I feel like you're patronizing us a little by acting like you don't know about this issue. I've had my car for 6 months now and I'm a little pissy to say the least that I'm facing the possibility of making 5 years of payments on a $17000 bathtub on wheels. Ford is simply NOT doing the right thing concerning this issue, and I think everyone that has the issue would agree with me on that. Unless you've recently bought your dream car, only to find out that it can't sit in the rain without filling up it's floorboards with water, then I'm sure you can't understand how frustrating it is. Sorry, I know you didn't personally build the car.