*SOLVED* water leak inside cabin
 

im working on a 2009 E70 with a leak inside the cabin. rear floor boards, both sides. checked the water vapor barriers in the doors, they are in good shape. sunroof drains are working fine. door seals look to be in good shape. nothing obvious sticks out. currently have carpet seats / carpet pulled to dry out he interior. what should i look for? any ideas? any help would be appreciated.

vehicle has 60k miles.

You've covered most of the bases. I just had to replace the pano roof seal on an e61 wagon I bought. But that usually materializes as a leak that runs along the headliner to the d pillars. Had to rewrap the headliner as it had damaged the fabric.

You could do a flood test on the roof and check it just to rule it out. I think the updated roof seal was already in use by 09 though?

I have a friends who's 2007 is doing the same thing. He swears its coming through the vapour barriers on the door. I'm going to check it in a couple weeks.

My issue ended up being both water vapor seals on the rear doors. After drying out the interior, ran a water hose over the vehicle while crawling around looking for leaks. Nothing obvious. Then I started focusing on the bottom of the door panels, noticed some slight seepage. Took off the panels again and tried to pry up the water vapor seals, noticed the corners came off with mild pressure.

Wasn’t obvious, but after getting it unsealed noticed some moisture coming out. So I believe this was the issue. Dried the area and applied some outdoor waterproof silicon.

Pics are exaggerated sticking my finger between the seal and door. It wasn’t as obvious the first go around.

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very (very) common issue on the E39s....

glad we caught it early enough that it didn't cause any damage to electronics, mold, etc.

An on e53's. Especially after previous owners or incompetent shops have attempted regulator repairs. Always find the vapor barrier torn. :rolleyes:

This was the same in my car, except all 4 doors were bad- three marginal, one bad, which soaked the rear of the car. On my car, the door vapor barrier sealant guy was not motivated. It was pretty bad.