Hello sensible Lexus people.
Can anyone help me with a solution to a problem with my LS 400 - 1995. Water in the trunk! I have no idea where it comes in, or what I should do. The water comes both in the middle underneath the spare wheel and side room behind the rear fenders.
There is nothing of the upholstery in the boot, which get wet.
Please Soeren Kruth - Denmark

 

trunk seal.

 

Underneath your spare, and underneath all the buckets and covers there is supposed to be a rubber plug into the body about 2 1/2 inches wide. Also check for any debris and the condition of the trunk weather stripping. Also depends if you park on an incline and it rains heavily.

 

It will be your boot seal, expensive for a genuine Lexus replacement.

Us UK guys use this company http://www.sealsdirect.co.uk/shoppin...artmentId=3#23 and the seal 'ETS59'. You need 5m of it.

 

I had this exact problem this past fall but it wasn't the trunk seal on my car. After tearing out all of the carpeting and interior for the trunk, I could not pin point the leak. Thinking it could be seeping in from some cracked/broken seem sealer (car was hit in the rear prior to me buying it), I tried my luck by spraying just about the entire trunk down with a rubberized rust inhibiting stop-leak spray. Seemed to work for a while but made the leak far easier to locate. After a couple of weeks of no rain I went out to check and low and behold, water in the trunk BUT it was not coming from the seal, it was coming from below it. What I originally pass off as unused mounting studs for a wiring harness were actually mounting studs for the bumper, except there were no nuts on them.
So I removed the rear bumper and sure enough almost all the studs that mount the bumper to the back of the car under the bottom of the trunk lid were missing nuts and there was no seal between the bumper and the body. So I found some new nuts, applied a bead of silicone around the base of each stud rehung the bumper and applied another head of silicone around where the studs passed through and where the nuts butt up to when tight. Spun the nuts down, now confident in having a positive seal between the outside and the inside of the car, I waited for the next rain... Nothing, and nothing almost 6months later! Took me about 3 hours to removed, clean up, silicone and remount the bumper and less that $1 in materials. Pretty happy with the outcome!

So check that out BEFORE you spend money on a new trunk seal that may or may not fix the problem!

 

I have that problem too. It looks to be my trunk seal. But I haven't fixed it yet since there has been no rain in california.

Thanks for posting this though, I should fix that soon since it started sprinkling today.

 

Thanks for sharing, Shmee. Were the nuts inside the trunk or behind the bumper? Do you think this was due to the accident or vibrations from normal driving?

 

My problem was due to a body shop neglecting to put them back in place.
you can find them pretty easily once you pull out all the carpeting from the trunk, you need to do this to take the bumper off anyways. some are hidden in little pockets of the frame around the trunk opening and are inline with about ¾" below the top edge of the bumper under where it meets the body at the trunk.
i would suggest getting some decent nylock nuts and running a chaser over the studs just to make sure they are not all buggered up.


I forgot to take and post pics, so please do so for others if you take your car apart.
cheers

 

So, this seems like a pretty individual case mate. In general if you are getting water in the boot, i'd put the blame on the seal unless you know the car has had a shunt up the rear previously....

 

I too have water in my trunk & after some searching around it seems like water is running along the wire loom that leads to the trunk latch release. I assume it's coming from the tail lights ?? It drips in the area right under the latch which is also the lowest part of where the wires hang. Can anyone offer insight on this ? I'm gonna lock someone in the trunk soon & do a hose down test.

 

Doesn't have to be a shunt... Even missing one nut can cause it leak this way. It's because the water travels down the gutters over where the tail lights bolt in and along that ledge on the bumper. The water will always find a way in, be it from the bumper bolts or the tail light bolts. Car doesn't have to need be hit hard, a new car getting a bumper repainted due to a small scrape would be reason enough to pull the bumper for a lot of original owners. Who knows a mechanic in the past could have been in there and neglected a nut or few for whatever reason.

And why not check? It's virtually a free repair and easy to assess even without rain: missing a or bunch of nuts, pull bumper and seal it up. If problem persists, it's probably the expensive trunk seal!

Pull the carpet and have a look, that is exactly how mine was leaking and where the nuts are hidden!

 

My point is that in 99% of cases its the boot seal that is at fault. Sure, its worth checking what you suggest, but the likelihood of the source is the seal.

This is not an expensive thing to replace, sure Lexus want £150+ but the link i have provided shows that any seal supplier can provide the correct seal for £25 delivered.

This issue has been discussed and rectified MANY times on the UK forum, I'm not just pulling this out of my ****

 

mine just had water in the trunk, looked aroudn the trunk seal, yup sure enough its leaking rigth around the face seal wher eit should touch the trunk lid. New one ordered up 116$.

hmm or 60$ usd delivered from that UK site...that would save me 50 bucks!

 

When I fitted the new seal it became obvious just how much the original had compressed and lost its 'bounce'. With the new seal you had to give the boot more of a shove to make it latch, settles down after a week or so.

I'm sure there are seal suppliers in the US who would have the same type of thing, you could include a picture of the ETS59 from the UK site for them to reference against?

Either that or I'm willing to send things personally if it works out cheaper, although i doubt it would

EDIT: Just to note that myself and two other friends with LS' have used this seal and all leaks stopped completely, plus many good reviews from the UK forum

 

Has anyone found a US supplier or a similar part number for one that is available here?

Is the factory seal one continuous piece?