In the continuing sage.....

Went out this morning. We'd had a fair bit or rain the past 3-4 days. In the footwell of the left rear seat there was about a half inch of standing water. They'd replaced the roof drains Tuesday of last week.

Any ideas beside the fact that the drains were improperly installed? It takes me a day of vacation time when I make a trip to the dealer so I'm getting a bit perturbed. Since this is outside the Select edition warranty, they won't offer a rental cart either. This means both my wife and I will have to go to the dealer to leave the car. I'm really PO'd about this.

 

I am sorry to read this Eric. Did you inquire about the moonroof weather seal as a replaceable part with Jaguar?

 

I agree with Rick. Ask about the moonroof rubber seals. But don't let your dealer off the hook, either. You paid them some serious money to have this problem identified and repaired properly. I wonder if one or more of the new rubber drain tubes was not attached properly and was pulled away from its drain-connect nozzle once the headliner was forced back into place. A tech in a hurry and being rough with re-installing your headliner could have pulled things out....

 

I was told that all was OK.....drains, weatherseals, etc.

Called service mgr and related my displeasure.......

Gist of it is....I'm going to take the car in today and leave it. They are going to supply a rental. When they have the problem solved, I'll take the rental back.

Eric

 

Well...

The dealership tested the roof drains and they were working. However, this didn't explain the half-inch of water that had collected in the footwell. It was literally a half-inch. (When the service writer put her had on the carpet, she drew it back and said, "My that is wet." Then I pointed out to her that the top of her hand was wet also.)

Further investigation.....a damaged seal at the bottom left corner of the windshield! The water was flowing down behind the trim panel and flowing into the channel along the door bottom and into the backseat.

The windshield was re-paired by a windshield shop and tested. Jaguar is now testing it for themselves. Then a wash and drying of the floor. Pick it up tomorrow afternoon.

This still leaves the issue of the cost of the repairs to the roof drains. They did do the work but...was it really needed? Dunno.

Also, what other damage could there be behind the panel of the driver's side by the left leg? Same panel on the right side could have soaked the fuse box.

 

If the source of your leak is indeed a windshield leak at the bottom left corner, I would think that your drivers side front carpet would also be wet along with your drivers side rear carpet. Are you at this point positive that your issue has been correctly identified and resolved? And was this windshield leak simply a seal failure, or do you recollect hitting something while driving such as a rock or a bird?

 

No cracks or other windshield damage. It's a seal failure. The leak was far down in the left corner and therefore drained down behind the kick panel. They're going to dry the car tomorrow and then run the leak test again but they think they've solved it.

My windshield is the heated variety...lots of little teeny wires. This glass is significantly stronger that a normal windshield I'm told.

Eric

 

water does have weird places to run from. Heated windshield, I doubt it unless you have a Canadian Jaguar, or Northern market car. What you probobly have is heated wiper park so the wipers dont freeze to the base of the windshield where they park. And No its not stronger glass.

 

No. I have a heated windshield.

My windshield has fine wires running vertically at about about 1/4" intervals. A switch on the dash controls this independently of the rear window. I doubt that I can even photograph these as they are so fine.

As it was explained to me....

While the purpose is to heat the windshield, the effect of all the wire embedded in the glass has the effect of strengthening the glass from implosion. It could still break but with the matrix of wire inside the glass the damage will be limited to the immediate area. It would still need to be replaced but it shouldn't be explosive in it's destruction. Windshield's are made of safety glass. This is an added layer.

That's all.

 

I suspect Brutal's point was that it's no stronger than a non-heated windshield. Not that it matters, in terms of your problem!

 

yes it doesnt matter, and since few of ya'll list your locations I have no idea where you are. But heated windshields are not common in the US at all. If you have a leak at the windshield, I would suspect a crappy install way back when. Like when windshield guys glue the damn headliners, wiring, dashes, and wiper cowls to the car with crappy shoddy work.

 

>since few of ya'll list your locations

Point taken. However, I'm in the deep south and still have the heated windshield. The wonders of "this car just came off a lease and where shall we send it" used cars.

The charge was for $125 for resealing the windshield. No charge for all the cleaning and drying effort. They were working with the service mgr's personal wet-vac when I arrived today. Since the car has 65,000 miles and 4 years, it's not really a matter of workmanship. It just happened.

I asked whether the drains were really an issue. He described how they found them and I'm satisfied. Seems odd that both happened at once but, sometimes a horse is just a horse.

 

I really hope that's the cure for you leak problem, but (there's always a but) your dealer comes out with some great imaginative stories, I for one can not figure out how water gets from the front windscreen to the rear foot well in such quantity's without soaking everything else in its path, btw the screen is no stronger than a normal LAMINATED windscreen ( if anything its probably weaker as its heated (most things that get hot and cold become brittle) , but I do not no for sure) I would say its a door weather strip or the moon roof seal, did he sonic test it for leaks or just run a water hose over it?

 

I've been told that the glass is a different glass than normal to take account of the heating and cooling.

The water ran down the inside of the driver's kick panel and into the door sill channel and then back.

No idea what tests they did to find it or to prove that it was fixed other than with water. However, I'm going to assume that it is fixed and move on. If it is not, we'll find out soon enough and take it back.

It dawns on me that the heated windshield could be the root cause. The heating and cooling might cause a failure of the seal.<shrug> We shall see.