Replace seals- worth it? (Minor leaks/damp headliner after rain)

[coolcom]

I am a relatively new owner of a 2000 528iT. I'm wondering if you guys think it's worth it to replace the seals and weatherstripping? Will it even help? I live in Southern CA, it doesn't rain much...so the alternative is to buy a cover for it, put it on when it rains and drive my other car.

When I washed it the first time, I tried to soak it pretty good to induce some leaks- I noticed that it dripped a little on the rear seat, driver side. Also the headliner was a tad damp and there was a damp smell in the car. Recently we had a very random thunderstorm that dropped 1/3 of an inch in 20 minutes (that is a lot for Santa Barbara, esp in Sept). There was no visible water inside the car, except on the inner parts of the doors at the top (I attached some images, hopefully helpful), but the headliner was slightly damp and it smelled damp.

It seems that it will be quite costly to replace the seals and weatherstripping on all the doors, hence why I'm asking. Would I need to replace /everything/ or just certain parts? Thank you for reading and your input!

[geargrinder]

Are you sure the weatherstripping is causing the wet headliner? That's more likely to be the sunroof drains. It's common to have a little dampness around the door strips, if it's been raining and the car is wet you'll get water smear across the weather strip as the door opens, so it's not really leaking it just got wet when the door opened.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Yep, that's not coming from the doors. The sunroof drains are clogged with debris.

[XAlt]

Vapor barriers in the back (occasional front too) and sunroof drains.

[jclausen]

not weatherstrip seals check items mentioned above

[coolcom]

Thank you all for the input! I will check the sunroof drains. Admittedly I don't ever use the sunroof since getting it to close is tricky! It stops a few inches from fully closed and if I'm holding down the button, it backs up and opens again! Usually on the 4th time or so, it closes.

[geargrinder]

Either something is broken in the tracks, or, the wind deflector is bent a bit and blocking it a little (or long shot the adaptation got borked somehow but that's much less likely).

But that has nothing to do w the drains. The design of all modern sunroofs is not to seal completely when closed but to allow the water to flow around the edges and into the 'sunroof cassette' tray, then down out the drains. So it has nothing to do with trying to seal around the perimeter.

Sunroof drains are at the A-pillars in front, and then rears are above the rear doors. Fronts are easy to deal with without major disassembly, rears are not so much... Where's your wet headliner showing up?

[coolcom]

I have not done extensive investigation in regards to the headliner. I do know that at a minimum it's on the driver's side near my head. I will have to do some more tests.

I'm somewhat relieved to hear it's likely not the seals or weatherstrips! Thanks again.

[geargrinder]

Yes the headliner IS near your head. Unless you're Peter Dinklage. In which case it's way way up above your head.

Srzly, if its up front, then the battle shouldnt be too bad.

Each corner of the sunroof cassette tray has a little drain box and a hard plastic nipple on it.

The front ones you can manage to just get access to by taking the internal A-pillar trim off, the visors out, and pulling down the corner of the headliner gently. A rubber hose slips on it and runs down the A-pillar next to the curtain airbag.

The common things that happen are:
1. the drain gets clogged w/ stuff (leaves, seeds, used condoms, whatever), but, more commonly...
2. the rubber hose inside that connects to it somehow gets slipped/pulled off a teensy bit

I think #2 is usually due to somebody doing some work in the A-pillar and janking stuff around not paying attention to the hose when they button it back up.
Or another thing that can happen is somebody tries to blast the drain out with compressed air or a very stiff snake-wire from above, and unwittingly blows the end off (tip there is not to use high air pressure or anything too stiff... a weed whacker line with a knot / knots tied in it is an old recommended trick...)

In my case somehow the wiring harness that runs parallel to the rubber hose had been poorly placed by somebody and it pinched the rubber tube. It drained OK like 75% of the time but in torrential rains the bottleneck caught up with it and would over flow. Took a long time to realize this and figure out and about 2 seconds to fix.

Its worth investigating, and then snaking, then ensuring all is buttoned up again afterwards.

HTH.

[coolcom]

Thank you very much, this is immensely helpful! I will let you know the results after I do the work!

[m735is]

I agree with the sunroof comments above. But if you want to replace the door seals, just go to a junk yard and find some that aren't so beat up= cheap. It may take a few tries before you find a decent drivers door one though.

In my case, the rubber tubes came off of the nipples. I used a gasket sealer and reattached the tubes. Look into this ASAP or else you could have problems with the LCM in the passenger side kick panel and fuse block under the passenger seat.

[geargrinder]

IMO Sealant is totally unnecessary and will just be a huge PITA when you have to pull the sunroof cassette some day. Those things never ever ever ever leak because there's an inadequate seal around the hose.

A better "hi-po mod" would be to use small size zip ties around the hose as a clamp, but even that's really unnecessary. The hoses come off cuz they get janked and not checked when maintenance happens, or because they are blown off / jammed off while trying to clear the hose of clogs. The ziptie (or sealant) would help prevent either of them but won't make a crap of difference if the hose gets pinched or clogged because then the water overflows the cassette and right into the car anyway.

[coolcom]

Will be cleaning out the drains this weekend, I think that will solve my problem. I do want to get the driver door seal/strip replaced since it's pretty badly damaged (https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/a...6&d=1504802946) Do you guys know what Part number or what the heck this is called?

From what I can surmise, it might be SURROUND WEATHER-STRIP - 51219069322. Does that seem accurate? https://www.faulknerbmwpartssource.c...ip-51219069322

Thank you!

[geargrinder]

Yes I think so. Use RealOEM.com by the way.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=41_0028

[coolcom]

Update: The fire is no longer raining down ash and it was a good time to wash the wagon. I had more time to better test as well. I am not going to embed the pictures otherwise the post will be even longer. The imgur album is here: https://imgur.com/a/t7Vzk. If, when you open the picture, it gives you an unauthorized error, refresh and it should load the image.

The pillar drain lines...they don't seem too squished by the clips, although I don't have a point of reference. I brought down the headliner in the front a little and there are no squished points that I could see:
https://i.imgur.com/QDydmDV.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/A6PVi0O.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ATSzI6h.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RalIPdf.jpg

I took some time and soaked each of the doors, just blasting the outside with "Shower" and "jet" for a few minutes per door, and after each door, I did not notice any leaks inside or damp smells. I did notice on the rear doors, there was a good amount of water that emptied from the sill/bottom of the door when I opened it. I tried taking a picture of this:
https://i.imgur.com/roJSo6B.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/e1RaxdZ.jpg

After a pretty serious soak, hose on "shower" mode for a good 3-4 minutes on the top of the sunroom/front half of the roof, I did not experience any damp headliner or damp smells in the cabin.

My windshield was recently replaced and I also replaced the super degraded cowl. It seems like the new one doesn't fit super flush (it is Genuine BMW). I tried pushing it down and screwing the little plastic screw thingies in, but it wouldn't hold. Is this something to worry about? The 1/2" gap at the bottom of the windshield?
https://i.imgur.com/HgaYbZc.jpg

I also soaked the back half roof of the car, same process detailed above, and after doing this I did not notice any damp headliner, but there was a damp smell in the car. I opened the rear hatch and inside the little wells where the hinges are, there was a 1/4" (maybe a little more) of water. I took a picture, it's hard to see the water, but it was on the bottom there going back some ways:
https://i.imgur.com/kCW1gYR.jpg

All that said, I live in Santa Barbara where we get maybe 12" of rain a year and maybe it isn't a big deal this damp smell OR I can get a cover (as discussed in the other thread) for when it's predicted to rain a ton- like an inch in a day.

Thanks for your input.