Gentle listers, I have had the rear driver's side footwell full of water and dried it twice now eradicating any hint of mold. I found that the sunroof drains getting clogged up is a fairly common thing and may be my problem. So, I searched on this and other archives for where they are and how to access them. Basically I found nothing concrete. There were two pics of where the rear drains were supposed to exit the car, but on my car I could not find the drain lines themselves to clear them. There are some posts about them, but not EXACTLY how to find them and where they are - only somewhat vague recollections and references none of which seem to apply to my car.

I did find a Jaguar TSB on (XJ501-13 JagRepair.com - Jaguar Repair Information Resource) but it isn't much help as it mostly tells how to reposition the rear drain tube inside the C-pillar. Another TSB (XJ401-07 same page) details other possible sources for water ingress but mostly from bad body metal joins and I'll address those too.

What I really need is EXACTLY where the rear (and the front drains exit the car [if they do] and how to get to them (I'd like to back-probe or somehow clear them as I can't find any evidence of them through the sunroof opening).

I ran into something similar when I tried to take the back seat rest off this car. I found out how to do it, but try (and yank the requisite pulls while moving the seat top forward) as I might I actually could NOT do it. So, as with that, the seemingly apparent drains are nowhere to be found.

Please send anything that can help as winter will probably be rainy as hell around here and I have no covered parking.

Best regards, Brian

 

Two ends of the tube to consider.

Put the front of the car on an incline 3 inch.

In the trunk, remove the spare tire cover with 2 torx bolts. Remove the right side cover.

Along the inside of the rear quarter panel, you will see a black tube which runs behind a structural component. The drain tube may be kinked in a hard angle and pinched behind this structure.

Follow that tube with your eyes/hand. It will vanish into a well on the right side.

You now know where the drain exists the car.

On the end of that tube, there is a 90degree nub that connects to the car and allows water to exit.

Fish the drain tube out of the well, remove it from behind the cars structure.

Lay that end of the tube in the trunk (boot) channel.

If you wish to get to the other (high) end at the sun roof, open rear passenger door. Remove rubber molding and grab handle and light.

Remove c pillar cover.

Drop headliner corner. Reach in and disconnect sunroof drain tube.

Pour some water in tube. If water flows out and along the boot channel, draining above the brake light, you at done. If not, blow through the tube. If all goes well, some clog will be released. It may not look pretty.

Once the drain tube has been cleared, reconnect the upper component to the drain tube at the sunroof.

Back in the trunk, reroute the a bit to broaden any harsh bends or kinks. It can be tucked behind park break sensor and over the inside wheel well.

Replace 90degree 'cap' and connect back to car down in the 'well'.

Open sunroof and test by pouring some water in the sunroof channel.

Only my passenger side rear was clogged. There is a great TSB on this topic that helped me. I will try to locate and link for you.

Thanks
Mag

 

Pics

 

Not even sure I want to know what the substance in picture 3 could possibly be!

 

Well I seem to have solved the problem. I am not really sure what did it as I tried several things. I did manage to get to the sunroof drain in the offending side, but it didn't seem to be clogged. Still, I cleared it and put the headliner back together where I had to drop it down for access.

The second thing I did was take some clear silicone and liberally and carefully apply it to each corner of the boot lip at the base of the rear window. There seemed to be large gaps at the sheet metal joins so I just filled them to obviate any chance they might be the culprit. In any case we, in the DFW area have since had several "frog chocker" rain events and the car has remained dry.

Best, Brian