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Sorry this pic is sideways but you can see the brown tube is not long enough. Here is why these leak. This tube needs to be extended. We chose to go right behind the wheel well liner
Last edited by jmlebresco; 04-14-15 at 08:26 AM.
Reason: picture is sideways
Pretty much exactly what they did with my last RX. Extended the tube to go outside the car to avoid it filling and spilling into the cabin. Any idea if this is a DIY thing at home?
I attempted to use weed wacker plastic wire. I suggest getting a thick gauge as in picture.
I ran the wire all the way through but there was no clog
You can see the yellow weed wacker wire all the way through.
I then pulled the blue box which had all the wires on it.
Behind the box I found the sunroof drain tube
But the tube seems to be just sitting back there.
Is it suppose to be connected to something?
Planning on extending it.
Where do I extend it too?
Had a downpour with the sunroof closed and it filled about half a water bottle. So as stated elsewhere these sunroofs are not made to be water tight. These hoses should be maintained regularly.
I'm not entirely sure where they ran the extension. All I remember (and I can't check as the car I had this issue I no longer have, sold it and replaced it with a later model RX330) was that it was extended out of the car so it no longer finished in the body work.
You said in an earlier post you removed the rocker panel
Is that the black trim panel under the car?
I removed the rocker panel (the black trim panel under the car) to try and investigate the cause of the leak. I was trying to determine whether that was blocked full of leaves etc. It was clean. I gave up in the end and took it into Toyota who extended the sunroof drain tube. From memory I think they extended it to around the front mudflap position so that it spilt outside and didn't have a chance to backup.
The body plug that I pictured earlier was a dead end. It looks like its going into the frame itself, not into the car nor into the area where the original drain tube is.
From what I understand looking at the picture attached, the water leaks into that area (colored in red) and then eventually trickles down and out near the mudflap area onto the floor outside.
There are no other body plugs in that area to extend the drain tubes into. Unless I drill a new hole?
I am hoping jmlebresco responds back to clarify how to get behind the fender well.
Called the dealer today they said that the water drips out of a seam seal.
This seem seal may be rusted or clogged.
I will attempt to open it with a flat head screw driver today and report back.
When I originally had my roof racks removed, the holes were not plugged up properly and hence I got some water spilling into the car. I took the car to Lexus who were gracious enough to seal them properly and the leak stop. This was last year. I had my windscreen replaced about 6 months ago due to a crack in the window and that was replaced no water leakage. Last week I noticed a wet smell, which was exactly as I remember the first time water came into the cabin. I checked the carpet and sure enough, the passenger foot well (driver side to you US guys) was wet again. So proceeded to see what was going on, which one of these things was causing the issue.
1) I initially thought that it must be those roof rack holes and I proceeded to remove the original sealant used by the dealer and seal the hole from the inside out. I basically put silicon into the hole (the threads that the roof racks would normally bolt to are destroyed) until it filled out (not that much) and then black siliconed over the top of that.
Result: Spray water around the area and water still spills in. I would have expected that if the hole was sealed up or mostly sealed up, the water volume leaking in would be reduced, but alas the volume is still exactly the same.
2) I thought it might be the front windscreen and so I sprayed around it to see if there was a leak there.
Result: No leak
3) At this stage I am thinking it must be the roof rack rail holes. I thought let me try the sunroof purely to see if that might be the problem. I could not understand why if the holes were sealed or if the seal wasn't that good, that the same volume of water was coming in. I put a blanket between the sunroof and roof rack bolts and poured water over the sunroof. I did this check 2 or 3 times making sure that water was not going near the roof rack holes.
Result: Volume of water leaks into the car.
At this stage I am 95% confident that the problem is actually the sunroof and not the roof rack holes.
The water is draining in the passenger footwell through this hole (driver's side for you US guys)
So
How do I stop this happening? How do I check if the passage is blocked? How do I empty it? Is there a plug I can remove somewhere to unclog the pipe? I need to get this resolved very quickly. I did speak with Lexus and they are wanting to charge me $170 per hour to find the problem or identify what's wrong with it. They would do 2 hours and if nothing found, would keep charging $170 until they found the problem. That's a ridiculous price to find a problem like that. Is there anything I can do to try and resolve this issue.
Disconnect the battery, disconnect all of the wiring in your picture, try and find a way to look into the cavity behind all of that wiring, I would almost be you will find that the hose is not where it should be.
I'm trying to understand this. I have an 2006 RX400h. The leak is coming from the passenger side, out the hole draco points to in his photo. So I presume water is filling up that cavity rather than draining out of it. So the solution of holding an air compressor nozzle to the moonroof drain hole up top would not be a solution for me, if I understand correctly. Because if the hose were clogged, it would be backing up and leaking into the roof of the interior. By the same logic, if I understand correctly, the clog instead would be somewhere in this cavity inside behind those wires where the water is not allowed to exit the car, but instead pools and fills up until it finally exits that hole. So if that's true, I wonder what steps those Lexus mechanics did to unclog Draco's car, and how the managed to only spend an hour doing it.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that my leak is on the passenger side of a U.S. model, so the opposite side from Draco's. It looks to me like it would be a much more difficult task to pull the box holding the wires on that side to gain access to the tube, if it can even be done at all. Perhaps there is some cover under the car that can be removed to fish dirt out of the hole in the well that catches what comes out of the tube, since I am guessing it is that drain hole rather than the tube, that is clogged. Hard to tell without being able to lift the car up on a rack.
Well, in the light of a new day, it turned out it was not as difficult as I thought to pull the box holding the wires out of the side wall of what in Australia is the drivers side (passenger side here in US).
You unhook the wires from their connections, then you have to manage to push in the three tabs that hold in the white box and pull them clear enough to allow you to then grab the box and pull it out. Takes a little patience, but eventually you'll get it. The picture above shows the white box on the left pulled out of the rectangular opening on the right.
To see what is going on inside the opening, I had to carefully turn my iphone into the slot with the flash turned on, and then manage to snap some photos without otherwise accidentally sliding it to video, slo-mo, or turning off the phone completely, which turned out to be an endeavor in itself with a regular iphone 6. But somehow you need to get a camera with flash to see inside, and this is what I found:
Compare this to the image Lexusfixer posted earlier in the thread...
and you'll see that where his drain hole is clear, mine is completely filled with crud.
Somehow I'll have to try to vacuum out what I can. Perhaps the dealer knows how to blow the hole from the bottom of the vehicle and then I can vacuum whatever is blown into the compartment.
But contrary to what Lexusfinder said, I doubt that the problem was the hose shrinking and dislodging from this opening. I think it was always designed to drip into the compartment and from there drain into the hole and out the car. But perhaps I'm wrong on that.
Anyway, I hope these photos help further clarify things for anyone else that has this problem.
04-14-15, 08:25 AM
Sunroof tube in kick panel
