e53 water leak

[switchman]

My '06 e53 is at the dealer since 12/14 for water leak. Water collects in rear padded compartment behind wheel well next to electronics, left side and below fuse block, right side.
Water does not always appear until vehicle is driven, so its collecting somewhere else before it flows down. its been at the dealer since 12/14 and they are stumped after they have replaced the sunroof drain tube and perimeter seal. They found collapsed LF drain tube after it leaked in driver side which had not happened to me. Dealer had performed sib 540606 & 540409 already but when i picked up the vehicle last Saturday, we found water again in left rear compartment. Needless to say, my truck is still with dealer. I jokingly said to them i'd be more than happy to keep the e70 loaner, its a '09 with barely 14k miles.

So, does anyone have this problem ? I've researched this site and found writeups that are a little bit different from mine as water was found collecting in spare wheel compartment but not above it ?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Weasel]

I've seen water leaks in the back of X5's from a body seam under the tail lights... which leaks more when driving than when stationary due to the water needing to go slightly up to get in and a the cabin pressure drops when driving. I'd pass this info to the dealer so they know to give an extra look there. It isn't common, but not unheard of.

[switchman]

Thanks, Weasel.
I'll be calling them 2morrow for status and ask them about this.

[TowX]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who had the kinked LF drain tube. My dealer said they see this more often than they care to think about, and can't figure out why the plant can't put it together without kinking the drain tube.

[ernaldamerican]

Where is this drain tube acutally located?

[TowX]

Originally Posted by ernaldamerican

Where is this drain tube acutally located?

There are drain tubes that run down both A-pillars, the pillars between your windshield and the front doors. For some reason there are tubes supplied to BMW that are a couple inches too long and during manufacturing get kinked about half way down the pillar behind the upholstered cover.

In my case, any time the car was parked in my driveway nose to the garage there was no leak, my driveway is inclined up to the garage. But if I parked nose down, the car would leak down on my feet area overnight. Not a good think with all the electronics under the dash. So when I was parked nose up, the water would run to the rear channels and down the rear tubes with no problem.

I discovered the problem the night before leaving on a trip, (a Friday night of course with nobody at any dealerships.) So I pulled the A-pillar cover off and found the kinked line. Took pics of it before I Maguyver'd it by cutting the line at the kink and installing a small piece of plastic tubing inline so we could leave for our trip.

Took it to the dealer when I returned and there wasn't even a question since this is such a common problem, and ONLY on the left front. They had to pull the sunroof cassette out to replace the entire line for me.

[wullaby]

I have same issue with my 03 E53! I removed factory subwoofer and discovered water on the carpet area also where my DSP amplifier is there is water. Both Rear qtr panels are sopping wet ( I dried as best as I could with towels) i did wash the truck and it rained on xmas day so that may have been the culprit. I discovered it on accident as I was trying to change a brake bulb i got a message in my cluster to check rear brake lights! I asked a friend who has a friend that use to work at BMW as a technician so hopefully he knows exactly what it is.

[cncmastr]

Originally Posted by wullaby

I have same issue with my 03 E53! I removed factory subwoofer and discovered water on the carpet area also where my DSP amplifier is there is water. Both Rear qtr panels are sopping wet ( I dried as best as I could with towels) i did wash the truck and it rained on xmas day so that may have been the culprit. I discovered it on accident as I was trying to change a brake bulb i got a message in my cluster to check rear brake lights! I asked a friend who has a friend that use to work at BMW as a technician so hopefully he knows exactly what it is.

So, was this a drain tube problem? I have the same issue on my X, it looks like it is coming from above the rear D pillar. The rear-most pillar. My NAV case had water on it. I'll take pics tomorrow. I would like to figure out how to resolve this.

[SlickGT1]

You might have to drop the headliner. You should first check the routing of those drain tubes.