Read this if you have water in your trunk and you have checked all of the usual spots

[agent]

OEM for sure.

This. Especially for any rubber gaskets or seals.

[AlphaE]

OR.. there are 5 little holes behind the bumper... when i went to plastic bumpers on my 88 these holes never got plugged.. I think the black surround for the Alum bumper went in them, but now i have no surround...I couldnt find them on REALOEM. but they are little oval holes behind the bumper and if the water hits it right it will pour into your trunk wells. I rigged some little plugs for them. No water now.... except the tailight leak of course..

[jdt10768]

my car came back from the bodyshop 2 months ago, and noticed a pool of water in both the jack area & underneath the battery tray. was going nuts looking for the leak. The shop removed all the glass, trim etc to paint the car, so I wasn't sure what they did wrong.

I replaced the 3 plastic grommets + gaskets the OP posted here (on the c-pillar trim)...and it still leaked. Realized those grommets almost have to be hammered into place, in order for it to actually seal. So i had to pick up more grommets to redo it.

Reassembled everything and hosed it down. I think its fixed now. What a PITA tracking that down!

* which parts did you replace
?: #s 17, 18, and 20?

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=AF93&mospid=47305&btnr=51_0830&hg=51&fg=20

[Madhatter]

Bump for more information....After replacing literally every single seal leading into the trunk short of the rear window seal (which seems good), I was still getting water in the driver's side wheel well, albeit only while the car was in motion on very, very wet roads.

I gave it the old garden hose test and deluged the top of the car for a solid five minutes being sure to get every nook and cranny wet. I opened the trunk and NOTHING. Not a drop. Remembering that the last time I saw water was the last time I drove on the Parkway during a nasty rainstorm, I shoved the hose in the wheel well and gave it the same five minute treatment. I opened the trunk and low and behold; water!!

I am going to take my car to the body shop this week to strip all of the undercoating in both wheel wells and see what the seams look like. I'm guessing there will be some mild rust most likely due to the seam sealer being dry rotted and not doing its job, thus leading to water in the trunk.

So, if you've tried everything like I have and you're still getting water in there, the answer might not be replacing seals...

I will post pictures after I strip all the old crap off.

When I finally got to the bottom of mine after replacing a bunch of seals, stripped off all the sealer on the outside of the valance and found pretty much no metal left.

It had rusted the valance where it joins sheet metal in the battery area and the seam had opened up along the width of the battery area. So water would flick up from underneath, enter in through the split in the seam of the panels and puddle in the battery area.

You can see the panels have come apart on the underside of the valance in this photo.



Then I removed all the seam sealer on the inside of the battery area and it looked terrible.



All you could see from the outside was a rust bubble about an inch in size in the bottom corner of the valance. All the other stuff was covered in that bitumen rubber coating and looked mint from the outside while the water had been getting up between the joins in the panels and the seam sealer on the inside. Perfect environment for rust.

[jdt10768]

I finally got around to ordering these:



I got one for each side. My local dealership was going to have to order them from Germany, but actually found two of them in the US at another dealership, so they should be here sometime next week! My trunk is going to need to seriously air out next week in addition to getting some much need carpet cleaning....

Can those trunk sunroof drain gaskets be replaced from inside the trunk? I looked at the pass side sunroof drain and it seems to pop outward from the trunk towards the bumper. Basically, how do I replace those gaskets? Thanks