Another X5 falls victim to leaks
 

Hi guys,

I bought a 2005 Diesel about 3 weeks ago and so far it's been great.

I had to park it outside 2 nights ago and it rained but I wouldn't say a lot.

Anyway the next day I used the remote to open it up which worked fine but then the remote on the kep no longer worked so I thought the key must be stuffed.

So I drove to the shops and back without any issues.

When I got home and parked the car, again facing up hill, my wife later said "did you know the indicator lights are still on?"

I went outside and checked and sure enough the lights were coming on/off weirdly.

Having had rain and having the panoramic sunroof my heart sank and immediately I knew it was water damage.

I checked the boot and sure enough a bad electrical smell came out. The left wheel well space had water in it and the previous owner had put and amp in the right wheel well which had the electrical smell coming from it so I thought I'd just cooked the powered sub.

Being dark I left it alone.

Today I drove it into the garage and started my investigation. The battery well was half full of water too and so I pulled the battery out and started sucking the water out with a wet/dry vacuum.

After pulling more of the battery compartment apart I discovered a module which was completely fried and was the source of the electrical smell.

I was gutted!

So I managed to get it off the wiring harness even though it had melted the connector a bit and found out it was the trailer control module.

Ok ok phew! That's not something I will miss for a while as I can hopefully salvage one from a yard as long as those modules haven't been underwater either.

So before I reconnected the battery I decided to check the fuses in the boot on the right of the car and found the remote fuse blown which explains why the key remote no longer was working.

Down to the shops and a new fuse which blew straight away. So something else to do with the remote lock/unlock function has probably also been water affected.

Where do I look now?

Pics of the carnage below.

Cheers

Start by looking for melted together connectors or wires.

Which components?

The melted ones ;)

On that same melted wiring harness you should find a pre-wired 6 pin connector (I think it's visible on the left wiring bundle) for Webasto/independent heater remote control receiver which has the supply from the same fuse F86 as the aerial amplifier. Wiring colour for that supply red/black. (Other connected wires on that connector brown/black and white/green, the rest 3 positions are empty.)

Thanks mate,

I'll investigate over the next couple of days.

Firt I need to find where all the leaks are coming from :(

I think this may be one possible source of the battery box filling with water. The previous owner did a dodgy rear camera install?