Nyaa

So I have done some searching on this issue but I was hoping I could get a little more personalized help.

So the previous owner's elderly mother drove the car and kept it garaged. She only drove locally within town so to go shopping or whatever so she barely drove it which leaves me to believe water leakage wasn't an issue for her. I just don't think it was ever in the rain long enough for anything serious enough to happen, plus I don't think she would have noticed and maybe didn't even drive in the rain much. Unfortunately, rain is an issue for me as the garage is full with crap from an entire house after a death in the family. So it ended up sitting outside since I bought it. So since it has been outside and driven in the rain, I have noticed that I have a leak in both the trunk and front a pillar.

I have been reading that leaking can be from the moonroof drain plugs. So I pulled the a pillar cover today but couldn't really see anything. I'm afraid to pull back on the headliner as I don't want to ruin it. It's the alcantara headliner so I can only imagine how much a new one would cost. So I stuffed a bunch of paper towel in the a pillar and shot water from a garden hose back and forth over the moon roof for about ten minutes. The paper towel wasn't wet at all and I couldn't feel anything while moving my finger around. So I guess it takes longer than ten minutes until water starts to leak onto the a pillar alcantara.

It is worth noting that while soaking the moonroof, I noticed that there is a dip in the seal. You can see it when wet because the water pools up a bit more there. There is actually some water inside the moonroof area. I have taken some pictures. The water should be pretty visible. You can tell where the clean parts are.. So could my seal actually be leaking or does water naturally get in there and that is one reason the drainage tubes exist?

There is also a water leakage issue in the trunk. I almost lost my navigation box once but after disassembling and soaking my components in rice, I managed to save everything. Unfortunately, I got stuck in the rain a week or so agor and box got wet and I couldn't save it this time I guess I have an excuse to get the Grom android replacement option now I usually have been putting towels and a shammy down to soak water up when I get stuck driving in the rain (which I have been avoiding doing). Anyway...

While pouring water with the garden hose, I noticed there was a light stream of water coming out the back end on the ground which I assume is normal. What isn't normal is that it felt like there was a lot of water around the tail light inside the trunk. I opened the trunk and tried spraying water inside the channel where the trunk hydraulic bolts down and at that point, water began gushing out of the taillight inside the trunk. Like shooting out as a jet of water. I took a picture of where it seems like water is seeping in.

Could anyone provide a little insight on what my next steps should be? I'm not quite sure how I should be disassembling the trunk channel or if water is even supposed to be running through there in the first place. Does water normally run through there or is it only getting in there because the roof drains or sunroof rear drain is clogged?

See spoiler tag for pictures. Note that the last moonroof picture is of the driver side. There is some water in there however no water has ever leaked into the car on that side, at least not that I could see.

rkw77080

Water can leak pass the moon-roof seal and drain out through one of 4 drain tubes (see sketch below)... One of these tube may have been disconnected or cracked somewhere downstream allowing water to leak into the cabin/trunk.

Nyaa

Well, that's what I was thinking but like I said, I'm a little afraid to mess around with the headliner lol. I guess for now, at the very least, I will try to peel a bit of it down in the right front. Getting it low enough to see the back right of the moonroof scares me though...

So, this may seem like a dumb question but is it common for a little water leakage to occur between the moonroof seal? Since the drain tubes should prevent any damage in that case, do most people not bother to replace the seal unless the leak is really bad? If it is the tubes and I manage to fix the cabin and trunk leak, should I bother fixing the seal or just leave since the amount of water seeping in over a ten minute course of time does seem negligible?

Also, about the trunk leak. In the picture where I'm pointing with my finger, does water normally go there? Is water only spurting out my the inside of the taillight because I'm dousing the area using a hose? I'm just wondering if that is a problem only because of my action and I can narrow this down to the tubes.

Btw, I hosed all my gutters out about ten minutes ago and they were caked pine needles. I'm not sure how much cleaning them out will help.

Mbodall

You definitely should not have water entering the trunk near the tail light, hose or not. A hose doesn’t even exert that much pressure on the car, and they water test cars when they’re made by putting them in what’s essentially a 360° pressure washer - and they should not leak anywhere inside the cabin or the trunk.

BCT

Get weed eater strings, shove it down the tubes to make sure they are not clogged up. Then I would pour water into each tube to see if they leaks.

Yamae

My car is not a LS430 but is a JDM 98 Celsior. I had clogged drain lines for the moonroof and the rain water was not well drained when we had a big typhoon last November. There are 4 drain lines just like the drawing at the post #2. The front 2 drain lines were easy to see and were cleaned easily applying some water there and then low pressure air using a compressor. But I couldn't see remaining rear 2 drain lines by my eyes and I tried to use a bore camera. You can find some photos here.
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...l#post10029891

I was able to see holes and I succeeded to clean those inserting a copper pipe there. No more problems since then. We just had terrible rain falls last week in Japan. Some of you might have seen it on TV. It was peaking 4 inches/hour of rain fall and totally more than 30 inches at my location but there was no leak to the cabin at all.

Nyaa

Okay, so I finally had some time to work on the car today and I am having difficulty dropping the headliner enough to inspect the drain hoses. I removed the A & B pillars, trim that goes on the inside of the doors (the thing that has all the sticky black tar behind it), visors, the panel with the moonroof controls, the "oh crap" handles, coat hook with light thing and the moonroof wind shield but I still can't get get the headliner to drop enough to see where the hoses connect. I can't even drop it enough to see the front one! It feels like something is holding it in place, kind of where the moonroof is.

Am I missing something? What could be holding it in place? I would think that if I took off all that stuff, it would just kind of drop down...

rkw77080

Please take a look at the attached PDF to see if it helps...

Nyaa

Okay, I have a big problem.

Turns out that the drainage tubes are connected nice and tight. Also, when I stuck weed eater line through the holes, it didn't seem to get stuck on anything.

The problem is where the leak is. Fortunately, it started raining just as I dropped the headliner so I was able to sit and watch for leaks. Turns out, there is a clip right against the seal on the windshield and water is dripping from it. I thought the water was leaking somewhere in the right corner on the A pillar since it gets wet there when it rains but now I see that water was just running from the windshield to the corner.

I have included pictures. You can actually see the water leaking. The first one is from the passenger seat position looking toward the windshield and the second is an awkward attempt to take a picture from the backside of the clip.
So... this isn't good. It looks like the seal around the windshield is leaking. I'm hoping I can use some kind of caulk to stop the leaking but I'm worried that I may actually have to have the windshield pulled and a new seal put in.

What do you all think?

Also, what about the trunk issue? I thoroughly cleaned out the roof gutters of debris and I now know that the moonroof drainage tube is secure. Like I said, water is leaking from the inside of the taillight. If you look at my original pictures, there is one where I'm pointing to a gap in the trim in that channel you see when the trunk is open. Like I said, if I pour water on that spot, water gushes in through the back of the taillight.

I'm going to try pulling all that trim and see what I can find but there is a lot of rain in the forecast so I'm not sure when I'll be able to actually try to diagnose further. Hopefully there is a gap in the rain tomorrow and I can take a closer look.

Yes, thank you very much! I was being lazy and just trying to pull the corner down without having to take everything off but that made it more difficult. Pulling everything and dropping the entire headliner was actually easier lol.

jayclapp

If required, I'd have a glass installer remove the windshield and reinstall properly with new seals. I would think they would do that for $100 or so, as they replace whole windshields for $200 or so.

Wanab420

The seal on the trunk is known to go bad over time. Also water has a tendency to leak in from behind the tail lights. If the car has ever had any body work then it could be the reason for the water in the trunk.

As for the front drains, all you need is Draino or some type of drain cleaner, and a bit of hot water. There is no need to remove the pillar cover from inside or to do anything with the headliner.
Retract the sunroof, locates the drain lines. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of drain cleaner to each one. Let sit for 10 to 15 minutes, then flush the drains with hot water.