My trunk has TONS of moisture on the inside of the trunk lid and it has produced a lot of mildew on plastics, carpeting is damp but not wet or drenched and my spare tire is covered in weird webbed white frost. It's ruined a lot of stuff in my trunk and I need help with finding and fixing the leak! :toilet:
What does the weather strip around the trunk seal look like? If it's ripped it can let water in.
might be leaking around the rear window seal and running down into the trunk. take a piece of cardboard and lay down in there, and during the next rain, look at it to see where the drips are coming from.
Pull out you carpet and let the trunk floor get a good drying out, if possible.
I'll do the cardboard idea right now. Finding a rainy day isn't hard in WA anyways ;) not good for the trunk though I suppose. I took Everything out except jumper cables and tool box. The weather strip isn't ripped, However I was able to lightly tug at it and it pulled straight off the lip. Could this cause it?
I do not think so
Do you have carpet back there ?
My trunk is striped and there might be a few places moister can get in but might not cause your problem if the panels are there
No rusted out spots ?
I don't see any rusted out spots...there's rust in spots but nothing that has holes. Thought...pardon me if this is a stupid question, I'm a slowly learning car person. What if there's a leak in my rear window? Could this cause moisture in my trunk? When I get in my car I have to turn on my rear defroster on rainy days to get rid of the excessive moisture. Sometimes it's puddled up on the window and won't come off unless I wipe it off. Could a window leak also cause there to be moisture in the trunk?
I think that was a possibility posted
Jump in the trunk and look stuff over lol
Nothing is impossible
per my diy link below
and here it is ,,,,,http://www.foxtbirdcougarforums.com/showthread.php?34827-Ever-get-water-in-your-trunk-for-no-reason&highlight=
Here's where the water dripped last night. It looks like its coming from behind the trunk lid. So I suppose it's the leaky window then perhaps...
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx39/levachemerde/photo1_zps8e2ac4a8.jpg
I don't know if that's window seal, although likely. The last time I washed my car, I had stuff in the trunk and found weeks later when I opened it that there was an inch of water in a trunk-stored tail light lens that I had upside down near the very back. I don't know how that much water got in at that spot, and I seal around the studs that come in from the lights that are actually on the car. It's not around where the rear emblem resides either. Leaks can be difficult to pinpoint (I expect mine to be easy on a warm day though).
Where in Washington are you located?
not sure if you looked at the link i posted or not but, i did notice that there is a manufacturing difference for the connection point i show on my 20th as compared to my son's 88bird.
is there any reason why you can not spray water and wait for it to start dripping? you going to have to pull the seal off to see and there will be tale tale signs of rust or corrosion or an oxidation point along the area leaking. you may have to get in the trunk and hunt down the drip but it may act different with you adding weight back there,, thats what i noticed to i got out and had to feel.
i just dried off the wet area of metal in the trunk, then added water to the rear window, then opened the trunk and felt around / looked around with newspaper laid out.
Check your tail lights. The seal on the back of the tail lights tend to deteriorate with age. Mine was so bad at one time that in a hard rain, my spare tire well would be completely full of water. I ended up removing the tail lights and using silicon to seal things back up.
Took me awhile to find out where it was coming from. I ended up crawling into my trunk with a flash light and then had my Dad pour water over the trunk.
wouldnt he have damps spots along his lights>?
Yes. I've had leaks from the rear lights at the bolts themselves but not the large gaskets. I've also had leaks at the weatherstripping. I wouldn't be surprised by any of the following either: rear window seal, body seams, mounting holes behind exterior trim/emblems, and the tail light gaskets. Obviously his leak is more forward so I'd be looking at window seal, seams, weatherstrip, and c-pillar emblem (this would likely run down the side though).
thats what i was getting at, the op's leak is up forward in the trunk and if the rear light seals can toss water that far up in the trunk i was asking if that happened to 50tbird88.
that would be amazing and interesting to find out.
I'll try what a friend told me. Get another friend I can trust, I get in the car with a light and watch for drips as they hose off the car. I'm seriously leaning toward weather stripping or around the window or under the window trim though. There's no rust anywhere else around the trunk. The only rust there is, is on the corners of my trunk towards the tail end, which as I can tell, won't cause leaking because it's outside of the trunk space
why would you get in the trunk, htats not a normal condition and the water may act differntly.
dry off the inside, pour water on the outside and feel for the wet area to show up.
there should be lines of residue where the water has been dripping and can be seen if you decide to get in the car and look.
I have been in a few trunks over the years looking for water leaks with good results in finding them. If you are concerned about the weight lowering the car and getting different results just support it with a jack at ride height. My guess is that if you are small enough to get into the trunk and close the lid, you are not going to lower it enough to make a difference.
Jcassity -- I could not believe how wet my trunk got just from the tail lights leaking. My carpeting was soaked...I had to remove it and let it air dry for a week or more. Like I said, the spare tire well was basically full. I bet it probably had 2 or 3 gallons of water in it (this was just after a couple of HUGE downpours).
Heh, "small enough". While uncomfortable, quite a bit can fit in there, including the tall and husky. I haven't had a 300lb person in the trunk, but anything 250 and down should fit.
My first thing to pinpoint leaks (not just a general vicinity) is to spray the car heavily, or use a sprinkler, and be in the trunk with it closed. Someone you trust should know you're in there though and have the key, and a trunk override or remote trunk popper is highly recommended.
Now if your trunk's full of /subs/etc, yeah, there's no getting in there.
i see, i better silicone mine and look at them,, good point
i was more curious about the op's picture and how that was leading your thoughts to the tail lights being the cause... i could not connect the dots. the water isnt near the lights adn thought you were speaking to the picture he posted.
I didn't see the pic until you just pointed it out.
I talked to a shop about checking the window seal. I want some clarification. No moisture builds up on uber rainy, humid Washington days, but it gets incredibly fogged in the back ONLY once I get in. It's been a year since the rear window was puddled up. I'm more thinking it could be the weatherstripping or cancer under the window trim. I've highly been delaying this because of school. It's odd, because I had some items in my trunk and they got completely destroyed (boxes, papers) but the carpet remains dry...I couldn't call it wet, barely damp even. There is a mounting pin broken on my side trim; I covered the hole but only with tape. Not sure how much moisture that would let in, if it could be enough to get a weird white film on my spare tire and destroy what I said was destroyed.
That white film is a fungus or mold of some kind, and wouldn't even be able to grow in there unless you had at least 90% humidity in your trunk at all times, which it requires to grow. It will ruin your entire interior with it's spores, and a putrid smell that wont come back out, if you don't fix the problem.
It's most likely rusted out under the trim and window, inside the frame, and slowly leaking into the trunk through the rust holes. You, a body shop, or someone with welding skills will have to pull the rear window to fix the rusted out area.
Dang...are you sure it's fungus or mold? Like I said, the white film only shows up when I get in the car on a rainy day, otherwise nothing enters the car. My carpet is absolutely dry except places where water will drip from condensation that builds on the inside of the trunk lid. I'm going to get someone to help me take apart the trim and look though. I don't think it's anything that is really harming my car interior because there is 0 damage or moisture anywhere inside the cabin except that bit of film that builds up when I get in the car on a wet day.
Is there a nasty/earthy/dirt type smell? If so then, yes it is. You said that boxes/papers where destroyed, that will only happen with constant moisture exposure. I had the same thing happen in one of my cars trunk, which I didn't catch for an entire month, and the water sat in there. The interior in that car still smells bad to this day, even after pulling everything out and detail cleaning it. The reason your windows fog up when you get into your cars interior, is because of the moisture level that is already inside your interior, coming from your trunk. Once you get in your interior you start to warm the air, which causes the moisture in the air to condense on the nearest coldest surface available, which is your windows. Get rid of the moisture coming in from your trunk, and that won't happen anymore. It's best to nip that problem in the ass early on, if you value your interiors smell. Check under your trim first, maybe you wont have to pull the rear window.
My trunk does have that earthy smell :/ how much would it cost to get that trim pulled? I'm very inexperienced and I don't have any ability with funky body work like that. Hopefully it isn't window work and I can just fix some rust and that's it. What did you do to get your problem fixed?
my back window was leaking, down onto my back wheelwell, and then down into my spare tire well, and rotted it all out. after i paid $120 to have the window re-glued, its still leaking; it appears to be along the seam connecting 2 pieces of sheet metal, at the back of the spare tire well.
Shouldn't cost too much. The Body Shop I work in charges around $150-200 an hour, but it shouldn't take anymore than 10-15 minutes to get the trim pulled, the area looked over, and then given an estimate on how much it should cost to fix. You can pull the trim yourself without damaging it, if you want to buy the tool, which is usually around $15-20, and you can get it from just about anywhere that sells tools.
My problem was on a old '70's Lincoln. In that cirspoogestance I ended up having to pull off the vinyl top, and the rear window out, as it was rusted out inside the window frame. Then obviously having to cut out the rusted sections, and weld in new sheetmetal. It is a shizniton of work to do correctly, and you will probably pay around $1000-1500 to have that done at a reputable body shop. So, hopefully that's not the case here, and you end up having an easy fix.
Which tool and how do you get it off? I started pulling one from a salvage car using incorrect tools and it broke halfway through. The one on my car is in very poor shape so I'd like to find one without missing pieces and cracks all over, but I don't want to ruin it if I can prevent it. Any that have been in the sun will be pretty much dry rotted by now.
Hmm...I don't think it's remotely that bad of a leak. All the moisture collects on the inside of the trunk lid and that's it. There's also a piece of trim loose that needs to be reattached. I found that every item I had behind my trunk lid stayed perfectly dry...
Okay, I'm going to give better details on this. The inside of the trunk lid has water that is puddled up on it. The carpet in my trunk is totally dry but the items UNDER the trunk lid got damaged. Any item that was around the trunk lid or behind it (closer to the cabin) is totally dry. I had a couple tools, tire iron and my speakers that don't have a drop of moisture on them. I'm getting the window trim taken off hopefully next weekend to get things checked out.