[AlpinaB3]

Hi All,

Last winter I noticed the interior of my car was getting humid to the point of condensing on my windows. After a quick inspection my floor was wet in the rear passenger footwell. I was in a pinch and rather than do it myself, I did the unthinkable and took it to the stealership. An hour after leaving it there I got phone call and they told me that my vapour barrier was separating from the door and that the barrier would need to be replaced. So they replaced the vapour barrier and when I arrived they told me it was most likely due to a previous repair done to the window regulator in that door.

As the temps warmed up, and winter became spring, and then summer, my sunroof would always stay venting no matter the weather, so I never noticed the humidity in the car. Now that temps have dropped I noticed that the car was getting humid in side again, and surprise surprise, the same footwell was wet. I did some digging, and spent hours digging though F30Post on wet footwells, and some chap in the UK had his white F31's vapour barrier replaced oddly enough in the same spot as mine!

I was a little cranky after spending a good chunk of change replacing a "faulty" vapour barrier, so I decided that I would do some investigating myself. I took the door apart, (and cracked my ambient lighting ) I spent an hour looking at the vapour barrier, and around the door. It was only until I was ready to give up and reassemble I noticed that a few little black "O" ring on the door panel's clips were missing, and as I looked at the holes missing their rubber O ring, I found the source of the water coming in the car! So I'm pretty excited to say the least about finding the leak, and now concerned about what's beneath the carpet that's been soaked for the last few months.

THE TL;DR:

CHECK THESE CLIPS! And check the door panel clip holes for signs of water intrusion.




The rubber gaskets are easy to miss, and certainly I didn't know this, and that they needed the rubber O Ring's - so hopefully someone can learn from this, and save themselves a trip to the shop!

[Sweeney921]

Great find, and thanks for sharing! We need more informative threads like this.

[adhrp]

Excellent - thanks for sharing and saving others tons of (wasted) time!

[AlpinaB3]

No Problem! I never saw this posted in the forum so I though I'd share and save someone the misery of hunting down a water leak!

[angel486]

Originally Posted by AlpinaB3

Hi All,

Last winter I noticed the interior of my car was getting humid to the point of condensing on my windows. After a quick inspection my floor was wet in the rear passenger footwell. I was in a pinch and rather than do it myself, I did the unthinkable and took it to the stealership. An hour after leaving it there I got phone call and they told me that my vapour barrier was separating from the door and that the barrier would need to be replaced. So they replaced the vapour barrier and when I arrived they told me it was most likely due to a previous repair done to the window regulator in that door.

As the temps warmed up, and winter became spring, and then summer, my sunroof would always stay venting no matter the weather, so I never noticed the humidity in the car. Now that temps have dropped I noticed that the car was getting humid in side again, and surprise surprise, the same footwell was wet. I did some digging, and spent hours digging though F30Post on wet footwells, and some chap in the UK had his white F31's vapour barrier replaced oddly enough in the same spot as mine!

I was a little cranky after spending a good chunk of change replacing a "faulty" vapour barrier, so I decided that I would do some investigating myself. I took the door apart, (and cracked my ambient lighting ) I spent an hour looking at the vapour barrier, and around the door. It was only until I was ready to give up and reassemble I noticed that a few little black "O" ring on the door panel's clips were missing, and as I looked at the holes missing their rubber O ring, I found the source of the water coming in the car! So I'm pretty excited to say the least about finding the leak, and now concerned about what's beneath the carpet that's been soaked for the last few months.

THE TL;DR:

CHECK THESE CLIPS! And check the door panel clip holes for signs of water intrusion.




The rubber gaskets are easy to miss, and certainly I didn't know this, and that they needed the rubber O Ring's - so hopefully someone can learn from this, and save themselves a trip to the shop!

NICE JOB

[Noelified]

Nice find and huge thanks for FYI!