C140 Interior Water Leak

[tmwsccsh]

Hi all,

As some of you may have seen on the "Your Day In 3 Words" thread, I picked up my CL420 C140 on Saturday. Amazing car - drive, quality, everything - a completely different world from the Jaguar X-Type I am leaving behind.

There's a few niggles (as you'd expect) that I need to get sorted, but I wasn't expecting this one and hope someone can give me a pointer as to where to start looking.

We had an absolute deluge on Saturday night into Sunday morning - and I mean deluge - I thought the conservatory roof was going to give in. Went out to the car to put something in it as I was taking out later and spotted a fair few drops on the passenger seat. Not good. Then had a feel around and the door card around the speaker was damp, as was the carpet near the door. I looked up and spotted this at the top of the A pillar...



We had some more rain yesterday, nowhere near as hard, but was for a while, and not a drop came in. The Sunroof looks Ok and I can't see anything obvious getting in there.

I am suspecting some kind of blocked drain (or maybe the deluge was so bad it just couldn't drain fast enough?) but would be grateful if anyone could give a pointer as to where it could be coming from so I can hopefully stop it happening again.

All has pretty much dried out now though which is good.

Thanks in advance.

TMW

 

[toby1]

Almost certainly the sunroof drain has rusted at the corner where the hose connects and it is leaking down the A pillar. If you're lucky it will be just blocked.

 

[tmwsccsh]

Almost certainly the sunroof drain has rusted at the corner where the hose connects and it is leaking down the A pillar. If you're lucky it will be just blocked.

Cheers for the response.

I'll take a look and see what I can find...

TMW

 

[tmwsccsh]

Not had the chance to look at this yet as we have had a ton of rain today :-(

I have ordered a sunroof drain cleaner tool which hopefully will arrive tomorrow.

But just as some more info on this, as the rain has now stopped I thought I would go and see what needed a bit of drying today. So I have towelled down the following areas...










This is a might frustrating.

If I don't get anywhere with the hole unblocking I may have to take her somewhere to be checked properly.

Disappointing start to ownership but hey ho...

BTW, can someone confirm that the sunroof drain hole is accessible by simply opening the sunroof and seeing it in the corner? Also, where is the bottom - as in where does it come out - so I can also check from that end too?

Thanks in advance.

TMW

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

This is nothing to get too worried about.

Either someone will "pipe" up from on here, or you just need to take it to a grey-haired MB trained guy who handled W140/C140 "back in the day."

The car's probably spent too long in a garage so no-one's had much of a problem with this in the past.

 

[toby1]

Have a look at YouTube channel vsandvs. He recently repaired one. I had mine repaired at Star in Caversham.

 

[tmwsccsh]

This is nothing to get too worried about.

Either someone will "pipe" up from on here, or you just need to take it to a grey-haired MB trained guy who handled W140/C140 "back in the day."

The car's probably spent too long in a garage so no-one's had much of a problem with this in the past.

Thanks Mike. It's just frustrating that we didn't know in advance. As you say it's been inside for so long it's not been seen.

There is a Merc place in the town so if I get nowhere with the drain cleaning I will give them a shout.

TMW

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Thanks Mike. It's just frustrating that we didn't know in advance. As you say it's been inside for so long it's not been seen.

There is a Merc place in the town so if I get nowhere with the drain cleaning I will give them a shout.

TMW

An ex-W140 owner on here may "pipe" up with some useful thoughts shortly.

 

[tmwsccsh]

Morning all.

So I had a look at this over the weekend. The drain cleaner brush thing I bought got about a foot and a half in then stopped. Pushed it about it a bit and took it out - rethreaded and it got all the way in - maybe there was a blockage and I've cleared it now (or pushed it down ). Need to wait for some rain now to see what happens...

Interestingly, whilst the Sunroof worked fine when I got her a week ago, this time it went back fine but coming back stopped about half way. Some encouragement by hand got it moving again, but there is definitely resistance and fight to get the sunroof back into position once opened. Grr...

In other news, I went over to the Mercedes specialist place on the business park on Friday to have a quick chat with them - it's not there any more (website still exists) but the place is gone - now a BMW specialist and different people. I have however found a sunroof repair place about 40 minutes away that are happy to sort it for me if I find the clean-out has done nothing so it's not all lost.

TMW

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Morning all.

So I had a look at this over the weekend. The drain cleaner brush thing I bought got about a foot and a half in then stopped. Pushed it about it a bit and took it out - rethreaded and it got all the way in - maybe there was a blockage and I've cleared it now (or pushed it down ). Need to wait for some rain now to see what happens...

Interestingly, whilst the Sunroof worked fine when I got her a week ago, this time it went back fine but coming back stopped about half way. Some encouragement by hand got it moving again, but there is definitely resistance and fight to get the sunroof back into position once opened. Grr...

In other news, I went over to the Mercedes specialist place on the business park on Friday to have a quick chat with them - it's not there any more (website still exists) but the place is gone - now a BMW specialist and different people. I have however found a sunroof repair place about 40 minutes away that are happy to sort it for me if I find the clean-out has done nothing so it's not all lost.

TMW

To test the drain effectiveness, just pour some water into the drain, using a funnel. It's not "asking for trouble," it's just better to do it in a controlled way when you're ready to fix it, rather than to leave it until rain does the job late one night. If there's a blockage further down, just get a longer prodder. Gently does it and you'll clear impacted crud, and then it'll all flow through - hopefully.

Sunroof just needs some mild lubrication after years of non-use. A quick google will show you how. Better to gently get the thing working again than to have it fail on you at some point in the future.

Worth finding an MB specialist "for the future." Better to have a name to hand when you need it.

 

[tmwsccsh]

Cheers Mike.

I was going to give the Sunroof some lubrication on Saturday as I will have some time then.

Agreed re: finding the specialist and annoying that the local one (less than 2 miles away) is no longer there. If anyone has any recommendations in North Hertfordshire it would be greatly appreciated.

TMW