leaky boat

[sputniknick]

so on saturday onwards just gone, i noticed when i turned a corner or a roundabout etc, water would come streaming through into my cabin, i've attached two pictures to show where its' coming from, it's fine when the car is stationary or going in a straight line, what's weird is that i've put the roof down a half way so i can look at it a little better but i don't understand where the water is collecting from as the runners all seem to be carrying water away from where it is entering the inside of my car

here's a picture of it anyway to see if anyone else has had this problem

http://www.nugget.org.uk/storage/leftleak.jpg

http://www.nugget.org.uk/storage/rightleak.jpg

[manoman48]

Those covers just unclip (although need a bit of force). I would remove them and you should be able to see better where the water is coming from.

[sputniknick]

ahhh, can they unclip in place with roof up? or need i put roof down a little? also do i just grab a corner and yank it down? lol

[ChrisM]

2nd picture: if you look right towards the side window where that large lump of rubber is, it seals the front screen pillar to the roof right where to roof sits inside this Cup type affair. mine leaks here in hefty rain and now noticed on the move I get a drip on my arm from the driver window where it seals against the roof. glad Renault did not make submarines!

[sputniknick]

yeah, regarding that rubbery bit, it leaks there a little too on mine (infact oyu can see a bit of water droplets) but only when the cars been stationary for a while and it collects, i think through wear and tear, that seal gets squished in a little and water runs inwards instead of being snug against the window and upper roof pillar and running outwards

i just need to remove that big plastic trim panel though to find out the cause of my leak

[sputniknick]

i have taken three further pictures, the first one shows the leak coming through, the second one shows the top of the windscreen with the rubbery bits, this section can't have anything to do with my water problem as i can't see a way of how it can get across those rubber bits into the top part of my roof pillar, the third picture shows the two plastic trims i need to remove... but can't seem to manage to yank them off without fearing snapping them off... any suggestions?

http://www.nugget.org.uk/storage/leak1.jpg
http://www.nugget.org.uk/storage/leak2.jpg
http://www.nugget.org.uk/storage/leak3.jpg

[ChrisM]

Ah so it is the roof plastics you want off I thought you where looking at the upper windscreen plastics, are you sure it is not the seal along the roof, if you look at picture 2 where you shot along the seal you can see the flat spots where the roof sits but there is a small section just as it starts to bend towards the door where there is no mark on the seal, water may be getting past there and running into the plastic panel have you tried a liberal coating of vasaline on the seal and then spary it?
The only thing that would cause water to ingress into that "roof" space is the bonding on the glass roof, other than that it has to be that roof seal along the top of the windscreen, I can't see anywhere else that would let water in to that area.
I hate water leaks

[sputniknick]

I thought of that flat rubber seal at first but itd be pretty hard for water to get across in to the top bit of that plastic trim to fall back down into the cabin wouldnt it, i think itd still be worth me trying to remove that plastic trim?

[ChrisM]

May be possible if car is parked nose up a hill, it only has to be a slight incline that could cause water to track back on itself, it could be filling that plastic moulding but when you corner the cornering forces push the water to the outside of the moulding where it finds a gap into the car.
Either that or is is tracking across the larger side moulding somehow, again water is a tricky blighter you will be suprised at how it finds paths in, Don't know about yours but mine seem loose you can push n pull em but they don't come off, and as expected no hint of a fixing or where they are fixed I am guessing and going by nearly everything else on this car they are clipped inplace not screwed, question is how brave do feel at giving it a good pull.
I had similar with my head up display it moves around but does not come off, a good solid push with palm of hand and off it came as it is only held in place by spring clips, but you can never besure can you! to be truthful I have no idea how they come off at all, I couldn't fathom mine out either. None of my trims on th epassenger side see mto fit properly anyway so I do wonder if someone at some stage has be in there as they are loose and the inner door seals don't fit them tightly either down the window pillar, possibly trying to track the seal leak it has.

[sputniknick]

Okay, I went for broke, my car is booked into a dealers next week for an unrelated problem so I thought if I yanked it and it snapped, I could get another ordered at the dealers lol, fortunately, it was fine to give it a rock solid yank off, it's held together by plastic screw clips and you just need to force the corners off at each end before working into the middle, it was easier to prise the corners loose then put the roof down a half and then carefully approach it from the front to remove the whole trim.

I've had the panel off for 2 days now and my luck is that it hasn't actually rained at all when I want it to! Whilst I was driving on Wednesday with the panel off (its been off ever since Tuesday night) water did come trickling out of the hole (circled in red) in the following image...

http://www.nugget.org.uk/storage/leak6.jpg

However that hole is plugged in when that trim goes on as detailed in the following image...

http://www.nugget.org.uk/storage/leak5.jpg

I know one of the plastic clips are missing, it's still embedded into the car instead, however in the blue circle in the above image, there are two holes as part of the frame BUT the trim only comes clips into one of those holes (the furthest to the left in the second image shown in this post (leak5.jpg)

So I have witnessed water come out of the hole circled in red, however because that hole is plugged up as are the others except for one marked in blue (there's another at the right hand side as well), I don't think it's that hole (red) the water leaks into, if it is, then I don't understand how water is getting into that top bit in the first place because now this has nothing to do with the rubber seals at the side, this has to be something at the top right?

The following iimage is just for reference with the whole trim removed.

http://www.nugget.org.uk/storage/leak4.jpg