Another Wet Rear 3Dr Footwell - But Fixed Rear Windows

[TooMany2cvs 65]

Yep, the fish and frogs are starting to breed behind the driver's seat. The under-rear-seat is dry. The boot is dry. The driver's seatbelt gets damp.

 

However, everything I've found points to the seals around the opening rear body window. Ours are the pikey-spec fixed-closed ones. I'm not seeing much trace of ingress on the paint beneath the glass.

 

Any thoughts?

 

(Passenger front footwell's getting a bit damp, too, but that's almost certain to be the corner of the windscreen.)

[allye 530 3 Cars]

It could still be the rear quarter window, is there any corrosion around the bottom of the B pillar? They tend to go there.

 

Have you done the old sit in the car with a friend plus hose pipe washing down said area?

[Anthony 1,003]

Worth checking that the sill drain points underneath aren't blocked, as when they are, water pools in the sill, and eventually comes through where the seatbelt rail goes, particularly when you park the car at an angle (e.g. two wheels on the curb). Tale-tale "sloshing" noises under braking from underneath you are a sure sign that there's water trapped in the sills.

 

There's two drain points per side from memory, one towards the front of the sill, and one a few of inches back from the B pillar. They're immediately behind the seam, a small slot just a few mm long. I'm not talking about the rubber grommits at either end of the sill in the wheel arches.

 

There's also a drain hole from the inside of the rear quarter into the sill, which you'll need to remove the rear door card for. You shouldn't really be getting enough water in there to cause a problem even if the drain was blocked, but worth checking anyway.

 

As said, it could still be the window seal, but it's less likely than the opening rear 1/4 types that are notorious for leaking.

[TooMany2cvs 65]

Cheers, chaps.

 

Being white, there's a slightly visible brown patch just at the fore end of the lower edge of the window seal, but it doesn't seem to be anything serious - the sort of thing that wouldn't even be noticed on another paint colour. The car's solid and tidy as they come, despite 145k miles - one owner from new until we got it four years ago. No sloshing noises audible (over the engine, anyway). The seatbelt seems damp where it comes out from the reel, inside the body side trim.