Rain Water Leak in floor board

[ddlrk]

Drove through the hurricane last night and found my rear passenger floor-board totally soaking wet this morning. Anyone ever heard of this? 5 series. ghead

[billB]

ddlrk
Not only I have heard of it but I lost the engine (see my post on this)

To the water issue: once the car is in, water will get into it regardless, mostly the door seals ...let it dry plus some baking soda.

you may want to consider checking the sunroof drain pipes for debris in them

[fetzer04]

its the sunroof drains. leaves or dirt. easy to clean if you know what you're doing. i don't but a mechanic will.

[d3ity]

sunroof drains? wtf... I have this problem on my 6 series... can anyone show me a pic of thier 5er with the sunroof drains pictured? I need to fix this and a picture of what they look like would help massivley.

[billB]

ddlrk and d3ity

d3 what is up, thanks for the advise check my thread about the flooded engine. Ok here is the deal: Both problems your 6 series and ddlrk problem can be solved easily follow this:

As I have already said above, the problem may be in the sunroof pipes: obstruction in the drainage.

You will not see a rubber hose hanging on BMW unlike other cars the rocker tubes on BMWs are used as drainage lines. If these rocker tubes clog, they fill up and will for sure overflow into either front or back footwells--the parking position of the car will determine this lousy front/back footwells overflow (i.e. uphill vs. downhill). Water (YOU JUST REMINDED ME OF MY CAR I HATE WATER) goes through these tubes which even a relatively light rain can produce standing still water in the car. Older Mercedes has a worse problem with its jacking points (4 Holes on the side of the car where they get so rusty you cannot jack up the car anymore..check the 450SEL in the 70s-80s.

NOW where are they?

You cars should have four small holes ( I mean too small of a hole for drainage--for sure another bad design just like the intake thing) by the front and back of the rocker that allow the water to escape/drain. Look behind the front wheel for the first two and take another look in front of the rear wheel.

As I said these small holes are VERY SMALL and I am very sure these hole do NOT have a job satisfaction for simple REASON: TOO MUCH WATER IN THE ROCKER COMPOUNDED WITH TOO SMALL HOLE PLUS DIRT-- BAD POSITION TO BE IN.

Please note the following three senarios:

Senario 1. Parking your car down hill can be a problem. That is to say: only the front (AGAIN TOO SMALL) holes could be out of commission by dirt and the rocker itself gets filled with water. As such the water (I hate that word) overflows into the footwell before the water level reach the rear drainage holes.

Senario 2. Imagine the opposite parking position where the front is facing uphill ...without going into the above details water will overflow to the back footwell much faster than typing this post---assuming the hole is clogged.

Senario 3. Leveled parking is you best bet of all, this will engage all four holes; but since they are too small to do so and prone to clog by dirt you still have a problem.

SOOOOOO what is the solution?

This is what I did...I used my DEWALT drill with a large bit to make these holes much bigger. Now It will take too much of dirt or too much neglect to clog them; also these poor small holes when they grew bigger by the tender care of my drill! they became more competent in doing their job; that is to drain water. One of these holes gave me a smile of relief.

Warning

DO NOT MAKE THESE HOLES TOO BIG. IF YOU DO, YOU WILL BE INVITING UNPLEASANT NOISE/SOUNDS INTO YOUR CABIN WHILE DRIVING.

ALTERNATIVE: Clean them starting at the roof with the cable TV company wires (coexial Cable) the perfect size and will not hurt anything just tape one end and insert it about 5-6 feet...and YES YOU WILL NOT SEE THE WIRE COMING OUT OF THE OTHER END.....THE WHOLE THING IS TOO SMALL.

If you ask me I will say yes a biological hole whether front or back does a better job in preventing leaks and overflows of all kinds of fluid including acid!!!!!!!

I hope I was of some help to both of you guys; again d3 thanks for your advise you saved me big $$$ on the engine

Billb

[vtbimmer]

thanks for the tip billb. cant wait to try your suggestion. for the last year Ive had water in the rear passenger floor everytime it rained. Hope it works!

[billB]

I am sure it will work...good luck