Question about wired that are behind glove box and a water leak.

[Adam132601]

I have a 2001 X5 3.0

I took my glove box out today to look around behind it. My passenger side front floor is soaking wet when it rains and the water seems to be coming down from up by the glove box.

#1 Is this leak a common issue or one that anyone has experience with?

# 2 There were 2 wires behind the glove box coiled up. One had a headphone jack connector and the other was some sort of powr source, looked like 12V. Any iea what these are for?

Thanks!

[Adam132601]

Any ideas on the leak or wires?

[Weasel]

It sounds like the leak is from either a clogged sunroof drain or unplugged drain hose. I see that fairly often with cars parked under trees. With the sunroof open, slowly pour water directly into the water channel at the right front corner, and look with a flashlight to see if the water is draining properly, or just pooled up in the corner.

If it is pooling up, it simply overflows and runs down the a-pillar trim and it is a matter of finding the clog. Usually either at the very top or bottom of the drain hose. (I can usually clear them with a blower tip and a compressor) If it drains normally, it may be unplugged... running down the a-pillar trim.

I looked back at a previous post I made that was decently descripted in guidelines to fix it... here's a copy and paste:

It does sound like the drain hose is loose from whichever corner is leaking. On the front corners, with the a-pillar cover removed, also remove the grab handle (2 t20 screws under flip covers), remove the visor and catch (3 serews on visor base and 2 under flaps on catch) and the felt flocked gasket around the inside opening of the sunroof (easily pulls off/slips on). There is also 1 more screw under the center cluster with the map lights etc. You should now be able to easily pull down the front corner of the headliner (lips over the inner door seal slightly). The white plastic corner piece has a drain coming off of it, and you should be able to see with a flashlight into the hole where the tube slipped back into. I can usually gently pull it back onto the drain with slim needle nose pliers (it actually has pull tabs, you'll see it on the bottom of the hose). And that should do it!

This can be done at all 4 corners if needed, but I would test each corner individually with pouring water directly into the sunroof drain channel as you already did.

And with the carpet, it has molded foam molded to it, and pretty thick. It acts like a sponge. You'll think you have it dry, but its saturated underneath. A word of advise with the wet carpet would be to remove the door sill and unbolt and move back the whole seat (leave it plugged in to avoid airbag light) and lift up the carpet from the split foreward to see just how wet it is and you can continue drying from there. Take note of the rear floor ac vent coming through the rear of the front section of carpet when lifting. Feel free to message me with any further questions.

[Weasel]

And for the wires, the headphone jack might be an aux input. Try plugging in anipod, cd player, etc. and pressing mode on the radio controller seeing if "AUX" comes up playing it. As for the 12v wires, someone might have rigged up a charger for an ipod if thats what it was.

[Adam132601]

Thanks! I'll try to tackle the drain checking this weekend. SOunds like removing the a pillar and the headliner is big deal. How hard is it to get it re-attatched the exact same way?

I plugged an ipod in and nothing comes up on the radio. I have no idea what else it could be.

[Adam132601]

I got the Pillar liner off and the head liner off. The drain tube was not inserted in the metal drain pipe in the dash properly, nor was it seated on the inlet in the sunroof. I pulled the whole tube out and cleaned the inside well. Got it re-assmebled and there does not appear to be any leaking. I put about 32 oz of water through it with no leaks.



Thanks a ton!!! That just save dme a few hundred in dealer diagonsing and fixing.

[Weasel]

Great to see you got the leak fixed. Just be sure to check UNDER the carpet for water as it holds it like a chamois sponge! Just pull up the door sill trim and stick your hand down there (tight fit without unbolting the seat) and squeeze the foam padding feeling for wetness.

[Adam132601]

Thanks! I removed the padding from the pillar liner becasue it was soaking wet and I got it dried out. I will try to ge the loor checked and removed tomorrow. I'll remove whatever parts of the pad are wet and dry those out too.

Thank you again for al your help and ideas.

Adam

[Weasel]

Well, unfortunately you can't just remove the padding under the carpet. It is part of the molded carpet assembly. Your best be would be to remove the passengers seat and prop up the front section, drying it out as much as possible with a wet/dry vac and squeezing the water out of it. Then putting the hardest blowing fan you have blowing under the carpet all day in the sun one day over the weekend. Just be sure to check under the rear carpet on that side as well.

[X5Dawg]

Originally Posted by weasel56

And for the wires, the headphone jack might be an aux input. Try plugging in anipod, cd player, etc. and pressing mode on the radio controller seeing if "AUX" comes up playing it. As for the 12v wires, someone might have rigged up a charger for an ipod if thats what it was.

Don't think Aux input was available in an '01. iPods weren't popular yet