Leak into boot

[MyATX]

Hi guys

I have a bit of a problem and want to see if anyone else has tracked down the problem.

There is water getting into the boot of my 2006 Aurion and it is ending up in the right hand boot pocket mostly (the jack side).You can see that it is trickling down the wheel arch when you take off all the boot trim. So coming from high up in the rear qtr panel.

I have had the rear window taken out and resealed and it still leaks. The main boot weatherstrip is also new.

So I am thinking it might be coming from the roof gutter?

Has anyone removed the black strip on the roof and how does it come off?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Hiro]

Do you have a sunroof? The drain tubes run down the A- and C-pillars and have a tendency to get clogged, leading to leaks either into the cabin or the boot.

[MyATX]

Nah no sunroof. Its really driving me nuts!

[trentmeyer23]

You could try laying in the boot with a torch; and get someone to drench it with a garden hose.

[MyATX]

Yeah ended up doing that and its not visibly getting in anywhere obvious. I seems to be somewhere up higher in the qtr panel.

Had the windscreen guys come back and double check the window, they put extra sealant around the window so we are pretty sure its not from there.

So that leaves the roof gutters?

[Auri 7]

Have a look at this post (and the one after):

http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/29104-water-leak-in-boot/?p=453791

Maybe it's worth to read the whole thread as well. Hopefully it'll give you some pointers.

Cheers mate, mine is bone dry now, hope you can get it fixed. (I used silicon).

Edited July 31, 2015 by Auri 7

[MyATX]

Thanks Auri

While i have water coming in at that exact spot as the diagram, its while the car is stationery and with rain.

Have to take off the strip on the roof gutter next I think.

[MyATX]

So a bit of an update.

Had the rear window resealed by a different company and they successfully stopped the leak ....yay. They were pretty unimpressed with the butchered job the first company had done. Holes in the sealant!

But now I have new leak coming in from the spoiler by the looks of it arggghhh. At least it should be a relatively easy fix.

So has anyone taken their spoiler off and is it held down with glue or is it just a seal?

On a side note I have just had the belt tensioner go at 145000klms, so new tensioner and drive belt done for roughly $1200.

I'm starting to find it harder to call her my ever reliable Toyota.

[Full-Throttle]

So a bit of an update.

But now I have new leak coming in from the spoiler by the looks of it arggghhh. At least it should be a relatively easy fix.

So has anyone taken their spoiler off and is it held down with glue or is it just a seal?

I did mine earlier this year. The spoiler is held down with double sided tape, 2 plastic clips and a couple of bolts. I was going to just use normal double-sided tape and cut it to the right size, but rather than risk it leaking again I decided to buy the genuine Toyota replacement tape which is already cut to size. The two bits of tape cost me $97 though :o, but saved me a lot of stuffing around. In my case, one of the plastic clips had a broken leg on it so it wouldn't clip into the bootlid properly and hold the spoiler down tightly. I ordered new clips from Toyota too but it seemed impossible to install them as they actually come through the spoiler rather than into the bottom of them, and there's no way to get inside the spoiler other than during the manufacturing process, so it seems strange why they'd sell these clips as a replacement.

Anyway, a few days after I replaced the tape I could see it lifting slightly (probably due to one of the broken clips not keeping the pressure/tension on the spoiler), so I got some dark grey silicone and put it around both sides of the spoiler mounts. Once smoothed out with my finger it looked perfect, and there was no way any water was going to get in. So in hindsight, if I was ever to do this job again, I wouldn't bother even taking the spoiler off to begin with, but rather just seal around the sides of the spoiler with some suitably coloured silicone.

[MyATX]

Thanks Full throttle thats exactly the answer i needed. I think instead of taking the spoiler off i will do what you suggested in sealing from the outside.

I can also see it lifting a little so maybe the clips are broken on mine as well.

Edited November 18, 2015 by MyATX

[crunchy-lemon]

Ladies and gentlemen of 2015, I wish to join the boot-pool pool with a 2007 Aurion here.

I noticed some water just after purchase in Jan but a few busy months caught up with me and hadn't used the boot. Got in yesterday and it smelt musky....oh yeah...

The well on the driver side had filled, overflowed into the spare wheel well, filled, overflowed into the small well on the passenger side. If it hadn't been for the occasional foam strips holding the carpet panel off the metal body it would have soaked everything. 

Popped the "drainage" plugs (at least that's what they're for now), scrapped the slime and dirt out, soaked everything up, and WD-40'd metal areas that won't get wet in the coming testing just to try keep that nasty water off my body (body? frame? bare metal? Ah whatever). 

Visual inspection is screaming tail lights to me, but the notes here are a great help to also check for spoiler (thanks @Full-Throttle) and will be testing based on a bunch of stuff on the other mentioned thread (thanks to @Auri 7).

If there's still any interest on this older topic, I'll update after testing.

Thanks all! 

[crunchy-lemon]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:43 AM, crunchy-lemon said:

Ladies and gentlemen of 2015, I wish to join the boot-pool pool with a 2007 Aurion here.

I noticed some water just after purchase in Jan but a few busy months caught up with me and hadn't used the boot. Got in yesterday and it smelt musky....oh yeah...

The well on the driver side had filled, overflowed into the spare wheel well, filled, overflowed into the small well on the passenger side. If it hadn't been for the occasional foam strips holding the carpet panel off the metal body it would have soaked everything. 

Popped the "drainage" plugs (at least that's what they're for now), scrapped the slime and dirt out, soaked everything up, and WD-40'd metal areas that won't get wet in the coming testing just to try keep that nasty water off my body (body? frame? bare metal? Ah whatever). 

Visual inspection is screaming tail lights to me, but the notes here are a great help to also check for spoiler (thanks @Full-Throttle) and will be testing based on a bunch of stuff on the other mentioned thread (thanks to @Auri 7).

If there's still any interest on this older topic, I'll update after testing.

Thanks all! 

Update for anyone reading this in the future:

Removed the rear interior plastic cover to then remove the boot lining on both sides. Removed all flooring, tools, tyre etc.

Made sure everything was completely dry and shoved bits of paper towel anywhere that I suspected may be the entry point (e.g. under rear light fittings, under boot breathing vent, around boot lid arm etc). 

Was unsure if the leak would take time to seep in and wanted to keep track of where the water was coming from so just did a few drops of different food colouring in jugs of water and poured them in different places (e.g. red directly into the right hand drainage channel, green down the sides of the roof and rear windshield, blue over the spoiler connections etc). Worked perfectly: the only colour to show up indicated it's only water flowing straight down the right side channel beside the boot seal.

I believe it's normal for that water to flow down that channel, and a lot of it to pour through the gap of the rear light fitting and down through the light fitting to drain underneath (which is what occurs without leaks on the other side). In this case the water is hitting the connection for the rear parking sensors and running inside. I assume the rubber seal is broken or not seated correctly, I haven't had a chance to look yet.

Easy fix, I'll pull out the connection and either replace it, bodge with silicone and foam, and if it still doesn't work I might even just use some of that black gooey sealant stuff around the seal. I also imagine the inside of the light casing may need cleaning if the water hasn't been flowing straight through like it's meant to. 

So yeah: removing the linings etc is pretty straight forward. I wouldn't be afraid to give it a go and if you've got an unknown source of water, the paper towel and coloured water trick worked a charm. 

Edited May 8, 2020 by crunchy-lemon

[Tony Prodigy]

15 hours ago, crunchy-lemon said:

Was unsure if the leak would take time to seep in and wanted to keep track of where the water was coming from so just did a few drops of different food colouring in jugs of water and poured them in different places (e.g. red directly into the right hand drainage channel, green down the sides of the roof and rear windshield, blue over the spoiler connections etc). Worked perfectly: the only colour to show up indicated it's only water flowing straight down the right side channel beside the boot seal.

What a novel idea ! Great thinking Geoff. I don't think water leaks are a very common problem on Aurion/Camry are they ?