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Looks like a lot of people are having the same issue. but without any pictures and guides. I am gonna post some pics here so I hope it helps other people. I have the same issue, 2017 RX350, first time since 2017, both rear door, after it had heavy rain 3 days ago, it collected a lot of water inside the door. It feels like you can drive a boat in there, quite a lot of water. Here is the problem and what you need to do.
Problem: Drain holes are covered and sealedwith a well built rubber seal (why Toyota, I don't understand why they put these on to block the hole, are they supposed to drain water?), there are 3 drain holes on each door, underneath the plastic trim at the bottom of the door. With the rubber seal cover, water may come out, but very very slow, after years of dirts built up, it just clogged. I think it is very easy to clog, less than 1mm room the water can come out.
Solution:
1. USE a plastic prime tool to prime the clip from the top of the plastic, you see from my pics(rectangular hole), so you can tell the rough location of the clips. There are 5 of them in this plastic trim, as you can see in the pictures.
- It is very important to use a plastic prime tool, I did broken two clips with excessive force. (****)
2. Slowly pull out the rubber seal at the side of the door (like this rubber seal is at the side of the door, not the bottom, the one close to the door edge at the side). be careful, don't rip it from the clip.
3. After all clips are primed out on the plastic trim, slowly pull out the plastic trim, remove the rubber cover for the drain hole, it is a small hole about 1/8 of inch. The rubber seal covers are pretty big and well built. You can see from my pictures, the left red arrow is with rubber cover removed, the right red arrow is still with the rubber cover on.
18 RX450h. Friends car so don't know if drain issue exist but surely similar problem. Car parked outside in rainy seattle weather during the day
Front door does appear to have a tiny slit for drain but 3x extra bigger holes can't hurt.
These rubber bumpers are probably for anti-rattling, will have to see how that goes.
Last edited by howardc64; Feb 13, 2023 at 11:35 AM.
Hello tianfan,
I know this thread is old but I just ran into this exact problem on my GFs 2017 RX.
What was your final solution?
Did you just remove the 3 rubber plugs in the drain holes?
Or did you clean and re-install them?
I would think you would just want to remove them so the holes can drain freely. Not sure why they are there in the first place.
If anyone knows why they are there, please let me know as I rather just leave them out.
Thanks!
Originally Posted by tianfan
Looks like a lot of people are having the same issue. but without any pictures and guides. I am gonna post some pics here so I hope it helps other people. I have the same issue, 2017 RX350, first time since 2017, both rear door, after it had heavy rain 3 days ago, it collected a lot of water inside the door. It feels like you can drive a boat in there, quite a lot of water. Here is the problem and what you need to do.
Problem: Drain holes are covered and sealedwith a well built rubber seal (why Toyota, I don't understand why they put these on to block the hole, are they supposed to drain water?), there are 3 drain holes on each door, underneath the plastic trim at the bottom of the door. With the rubber seal cover, water may come out, but very very slow, after years of dirts built up, it just clogged. I think it is very easy to clog, less than 1mm room the water can come out.
Solution:
1. USE a plastic prime tool to prime the clip from the top of the plastic, you see from my pics(rectangular hole), so you can tell the rough location of the clips. There are 5 of them in this plastic trim, as you can see in the pictures.
- It is very important to use a plastic prime tool, I did broken two clips with excessive force. (****)
2. Slowly pull out the rubber seal at the side of the door (like this rubber seal is at the side of the door, not the bottom, the one close to the door edge at the side). be careful, don't rip it from the clip.
3. After all clips are primed out on the plastic trim, slowly pull out the plastic trim, remove the rubber cover for the drain hole, it is a small hole about 1/8 of inch. The rubber seal covers are pretty big and well built. You can see from my pictures, the left red arrow is with rubber cover removed, the right red arrow is still with the rubber cover on.
