Advice about leak, water in spare tire well

[RMcG]

I have water in my spare tire well; I opened the plug and let the water out. The carpet in front of the rear passenger seats is also wet, especially on the right side. This rear seat carpet is wet, but fortunately not absolutely soaked. Also fortunately the carpet in front of the front seats is dry.

I put newspaper down on top of the carpet in the rear and some dry rubber carpet rugs on top of the newspaper to weigh the newspaper down and to try to get the water up & out of the carpet. I really would like to avoid getting mold in the car. I do not see any obvious leaks. It is rainy season here in the Pacific Northwest now.

I was looking at two other posts on this forum on this problem Yaris Hatch Leak Finally Fixed (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58661&highlight=yaris+hatch+leak) and Water in Spare Tire Well (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19438&highlight=water+spare+tire) and there seem to be several places that could be leaking. One common one is the tail lights.

QUESTIONS: Does the fact the carpet in front of the right rear seat is more wet suggest the leak is on the right side?

Is getting the carpets dry using newspaper and possibly old towels and the car's heater plus pulling the plug in the spare tire well sufficient to dry the car out?

Does anybody have any other suggestions?

Thanks,

R.

[ex-x-fire]

There was a posting about removing the rear bumper cover and filling a body seam up around each tail light. I'll try to find it.

[RMcG]

There was a posting about removing the rear bumper cover and filling a body seam up around each tail light. I'll try to find it.

Thanks fire,

I actually found several more posts searching with "water" & "leak" in the post title. Examples:

Internal water leak (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62332&highlight=water+leak)

Water Leak in Boot (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62235&highlight=water+leak)

09 Yaris Rear Water (rain) Leak (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61643&highlight=water+leak)

Water leak problem (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58210&highlight=water+leak)

Water leak in Hatch (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47888&highlight=water+leak)

2008 toyota yaris 2 door hatchback water leak (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51248&highlight=water+leak)

Thanks,

R.

[ex-x-fire]

Basically the one I'm thinking of shows the guy filling in the seams under the tail lights with rtv. The way they designed it would be like taking a shower in a tub with the curtain on the outside of the tub.

[momoivanoff]

Watch this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_lkE6dndfg
It worked for me.

[RMcG]

Watch this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_lkE6dndfg
It worked for me.

Thanks Ivanoff,

I watched that video and it is a good video. Here is another video that looks pretty good How to fix the most common water leak in the trunk or back of your car (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TBRkwxw0kk) that says most water in a trunk (or boot) is from the tail lights. But he has a regular trunk, not have a hatchback. He uses something called Lexel as a sealant.

I also have wet carpet in front of the rear (passenger) seats, especially wet on the right side.

QUESTION: Would leaking around the tail lights cause wetness of the carpet in front of the rear seats? This is a critical question for me, since I really have to solve this problem to keep mildew from occurring.

The problem of water in the trunk (or boot) can be solved temporarily by pulling the plug and letting the water out. But I also want to see if I can solve water in the trunk permanently, maybe by sealing the rear tail lights.

R.

[RMcG]

Here is a post about wet carpet in the back Wet carpet drivers side back seat floor (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42883&highlight=wet+carpet) . Look like there are a lot of possibilities, including plugs in the bottom of the vehicle that could be missing or defective.

R.

[zoidberg444]

I had this exact problem in my car - it took 3 attempts to get it. It turned out to be cracks in the paint work and the sealer between the joints.

https://i.imgur.com/Fzkl2Hs.jpg

There were several areas like this - there was a sort of "hook" to hold the black weatherstripping up on the roof and there were several areas like this. I basically slathered everything in the polyurethane sealant that windscreens are bonded in with and it hasn't leaked since.

Basically the entire rear of my car - from the gulley the weather stripping sits in to these gaps between the panelling to the tailgate seal and some of the seams between the metal underneath the bumper have all been covered with sealant. I used so much of it I can't be 100% sure how many leaks there were - but I think the one in my photograph was the main leak.

[RMcG]

I had this exact problem in my car - it took 3 attempts to get it. It turned out to be cracks in the paint work and the sealer between the joints.

There were several areas like this - there was a sort of "hook" to hold the black weatherstripping up on the roof and there were several areas like this. I basically slathered everything in the polyurethane sealant that windscreens are bonded in with and it hasn't leaked since.

Basically the entire rear of my car - from the gulley the weather stripping sits in to these gaps between the panelling to the tailgate seal and some of the seams between the metal underneath the bumper have all been covered with sealant. I used so much of it I can't be 100% sure how many leaks there were - but I think the one in my photograph was the main leak.

Thanks for your reply Zoid. In fact I think I was reading some of your old posts on this and I seem to remember that you had gotten so frustrated at one point that you said, "I am of two minds, ready to take a sledge hammer to the car." Having spent some time (but nowhere near as much as you did) trying to figure out where the leak is I can see how a person could get to that point.

Interestingly, I was messing around with the black weather stripping a few months ago. I removed the weather stripping from the car, because it was dirty & coming off (I bought the car new about 12 years ago). (I think there were "hooks" like you are saying.) I cleaned the channel that the weather stripping is in and cleaned the weather stripping. Then I put a bead of clear silicone rubber cement in the channel and put the weather stripping back into the channel so that the weather stripping would be secured in the channel when the silicone rubber cement dried. It looks reasonable, but given what you said about cracks, I think it could be leaking in that area.

QUESTIONS: Was the carpet in front of your back seats getting wet?

Did you end up removing the back seat in order to get the interior of the car dry or to try to figure out where the leak was coming from?

Did you slather the polyurethane sealant on outer surfaces (painted surfaces) of the car? Or on inner surfaces? Or both outer and inner surfaces?

Just to double-check, the circled area in your picture is the left side of the car where the roof panel meets a left side panel just above the hatch window, correct?

Thanks,

R.

[RMcG]

For those who are interested, here is a YouTube video on how to remove an entire Yaris carpet that has been soaked by a bad water leak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0MysY9ljbw

R.

[zoidberg444]

Thanks for your reply Zoid. In fact I think I was reading some of your old posts on this and I seem to remember that you had gotten so frustrated at one point that you said, "I am of two minds, ready to take a sledge hammer to the car." Having spent some time (but nowhere near as much as you did) trying to figure out where the leak is I can see how a person could get to that point.

Interestingly, I was messing around with the black weather stripping a few months ago. I removed the weather stripping from the car, because it was dirty & coming off (I bought the car new about 12 years ago). (I think there were "hooks" like you are saying.) I cleaned the channel that the weather stripping is in and cleaned the weather stripping. Then I put a bead of clear silicone rubber cement in the channel and put the weather stripping back into the channel so that the weather stripping would be secured in the channel when the silicone rubber cement dried. It looks reasonable, but given what you said about cracks, I think it could be leaking in that area.

QUESTIONS: Was the carpet in front of your back seats getting wet?

Did you end up removing the back seat in order to get the interior of the car dry or to try to figure out where the leak was coming from?

Did you slather the polyurethane sealant on outer surfaces (painted surfaces) of the car? Or on inner surfaces? Or both outer and inner surfaces?

Just to double-check, the circled area in your picture is the left side of the car where the roof panel meets a left side panel just above the hatch window, correct?

Thanks,

R.

Yeah mate - You're in for a hell of a fight to find out exactly where its coming from. I spent several weeks buggering about in order to try and find the leak. I stripped out much of the rear trim in order to locate it. I even sat in the back of the car with a hose pipe running on the roof several times to try and see where it was coming in but there are so many layers of metal spot welded and bonded together in that area it was impossible to tell. So in the end I just blitzed everything with sealant.

No mate - my leak wasn't that bad. I would get a puddle on the plastic just under where the little access panel to the rear light clusters was. I would normally put some rag or some paper towel to catch the water but on the passenger side it got so bad it was leaking down onto the boot floor and soaking the carpet in there and my stuff. I have heard of people with leaks so bad the entire spare wheel well filled up with water and then it would spill over when braking and soak the back carpet.

I left the back seat in - I just folded it down. I did strip out all the other stuff in the rear. If your carpet has got wet mate. I would suggest pulling it out and making sure its all dry. There are foam panels under some of the carpet to act as insulation or sound deadening and if they get wet you have to dry them out properly otherwise you will get mould and the car will smell. In 2016 when I drove to Norway I found the passenger front foot well all wet and it turned out my windscreen replacement was leaking. I managed to rip the carpet back and dry it all out amazingly.

Yeah - where I put the sealant on is hidden by the tailgate or the weather stripping but when you open the boot you can see it all. Honestly it looks like a mess but at least it stopped the leak.

I attached some pictures to this post of what I did. It really was a mess but thank god I fixed it. You can see in one of them an area of discolouration and cracking in the paint around one of the seams. I have seen another car where it was one of the metal seams underneath the rear bumper.

[momoivanoff]

Thanks Ivanoff,

QUESTION: Would leaking around the tail lights cause wetness of the carpet in front of the rear seats? This is a critical question for me, since I really have to solve this problem to keep mildew from occurring.

R.

Yes,Sir. That's how I realized I had a problem,by the wet carpet in front of the back seats.
When you remove the tail lights you will easily see where the water is coming from by looking at the rusty trail going down from certain holes.The sticky 3M stuff shown in the video is sold at Advance Auto Parts but you can probably also use something similar from Home Depot and such.

[RMcG]

Thank you Zoid and Ivanoff,

I read your last post Zoid, Egads. I am starting to dread what might be ahead. I really like the car, so I would like to protect and fix it.

In any case, fortunately I have another car I can drive. And though I live in an apartment building, I managed to park the Yaris under one of the few spaces that has a canopy roof, so except for some indirect rain exposure on the right, it is pretty much out of the rain. It is rainy season here in the Pacific Northwest of the Americas, so my plan is to keep the Yaris parked under the canopy for at least 3 months and try to solve this problem as I have time and the weather gets dryer & warmer.

I don't dare drive the car out of that space for fear I will lose the space. So I will just idle the car every week for 15-30 minutes and move it some so I don't get flat spots on the tires.

I am already trying to dry out the carpet in front of the rear seats. I was using old newspapers and that has worked for the driver's side, but the passenger side is still pretty wet, even though improved. I think I will continue the drying process with some cheap towels with cardboard and some weights on top to try to see if I can get the carpet completely dry. In the meantime I will think about removing the back seat. My back seat is not split and does not slide like the one in the youtube video I posted above. So I am not sure how to remove the back seat.

I will also look into the various sealants you guys have suggested: the windscreen (American windshield) sealant Zoid used and the black sticky stuff that ivanoff suggested. I am thinking of starting, however, by putting sealing along the sides of the black weather stripping on each side of the roof by running a bead of clear silicone rubber (flexible but tough) along each side and then using my finger (gloved with a plastic glove) to smooth it out by running my finger front to back.

QUESTIONS: Does anybody have any beliefs as to whether or not silicone rubber cement (the flexible kind) will be able to standup to the weather that a car roof experiences?

Is there a particular brand of silicone rubber that would be best?

I have no experience with windshield/windcreen sealant, but it looks like it is more permanent and harder to remove (if necessary) than silicone rubber.

Does anybody know where I can get instructions on how to remove the rear seat? (Again my seat is not split, and does not slide, so the instructions are probably not the same as the video I posted above.)

Thanks so much,

R.

[momoivanoff]

Does anybody know where I can get instructions on how to remove the rear seat?

R.

One thing I can tell you is to be EXTREMELY careful when trying to remove the e-torx bolts holding the back seat.I was careful and still managed to round the heads of 2 of them.Many people have had problems with those and it looks like they are made of some softer metal.I would suggest using a powerful impact wrench with the right impact socket for them (E-10 I think).Don't bother with a ratchet or a breaker bar...

[nortonfb]

I would use a product like penetrating oil on those bolts, repeated applications over a few days. Tap the bolt heads, lightly after application.
Suggest using a auto weather sealant, think 3M was the brand that was used in a
body shop.
Good luck.

[RMcG]

Watch this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_lkE6dndfg
It worked for me.

That black stuff is 3M Windo-Weld Ribbon Sealer Auto Glass Replacement Kit, Part No. 08612, Round Bead 3/8” x 15’. According to the video it cost $30 from Advance Auto.

QUESTION: Could the tail light assembly be removed if necessary with all that Windo-Weld in place all around the edge of the assembly (similar to what is seen in the video)?

I am wondering the same thing if silicone rubber cement were used instead of the Windo-Weld. It might be hard to remove the tail light assembly if necessary, because you can't necessarily get to the "gasket" that you've made with a knife to start to free up the seal.

Anybody have any opinions about this?

Thanks,

R.

[RMcG]

One thing I can tell you is to be EXTREMELY careful when trying to remove the e-torx bolts holding the back seat.I was careful and still managed to round the heads of 2 of them.Many people have had problems with those and it looks like they are made of some softer metal.I would suggest using a powerful impact wrench with the right impact socket for them (E-10 I think).Don't bother with a ratchet or a breaker bar...

Thanks Ivanoff,

Did you have to remove the rear seat to examine or dry out your carpet?

~12 hrs later edit: attached is a picture of the bolt attaching the front of the left side of the rear seat to the car floor (this bolt goes through the area of the carpet that is wet). There is another similar bolt on the other (right) side. This bolt has a simple, common hex nut head. I can feel, but not see one or two bolts that are behind the seat.

This is a base model hatchback, it does not even have a rear windshield wiper. As an aside, this morning when out changing out the cheap towels, the carpets feel pretty dry, BUT in kneeling on the carpet (to change out the old towels I am using for drying) my pants at the knee became visibly wet. Indicating, I think, that the pad/sponge material under the carpet there is still quite wet. And this unfortunately is the side of the carpet that is the driest (most dry). This probably means I will have to remove the rear seat and get the carpet up and remove those pad/sponges in order to get the car & carpet really dry.

Any more tips from anybody will be appreciated.

Thanks,

R.

[momoivanoff]

QUESTION: Could the tail light assembly be removed if necessary with all that Windo-Weld in place all around the edge of the assembly (similar to what is seen in the video)?

R.

Yes,easily.
I tried(and failed) to remove the back seat to do some sound deadening and not because of the water leak.The water on my back seat carpet wasn't that much.

[RMcG]

I am going to mark this thread and two others that are related as tentatively SOLVED, although I seem to have forgotten how to mark a thread as SOLVED. Thanks to everybody who replied to this query and in the two related threads.

I managed to get the back seat bench (lower part) out and to remove the black metal brace it is attached to. I used a hex simple ratchet wrench with an attachment for a hex nut and I also used the ratchet wrench with an E10 Torx attachment. These bolts were tight, but I hit the end of the ratchet wrench handle lightly and they loosened up.

I was quite concerned about stripping the bolts as I had been warned by another poster. So I tried to be careful not to be too aggressive. I only attempted to unloosen these bolts after putting PB Blaster penetrating oil on them and tapping the bolts lightly with a hammer multiple times over several days as suggested by one of the other posters.

I also bought a manual impact driver with an E10 Torx impact socket wrench attachment and an impact adapter to allow the E10 Torx socket to be attached to the manual impact driver. These three were obtained from Harbor Freight Tools, parts number 64812 (https://www.harborfreight.com/6-bit-impact-screwdriver-set-with-case-64812.html), 67898 and 61991. Total cost about $25. I used this setup on one of the Torx bolts, but I am not sure it helped to loosen the bolt or not. I think it takes some experience to use one of these manual impact drivers, but I think they are great tools for some people and cheaper than a battery operated impact wrench. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXWiS8sDZX8 and see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKZqNcn3Cvc . As I said, I think it takes some experience to use this tool; it seems that using a large hammer and tapping slowly (to achieve displacement) is better than using a small hammer and hitting it mightily. I think this may be because you need some displacement of the handle "downward" towards the bit head, because the tool is spring loaded.

The rear carpet is up and the underlying pads are out and have been in the oven at a temperature of about 125 degrees Fahrenheit drying. And I am putting old towels and newspapers under the rear carpet to dry it out. My plan at this point is to reinforce the black weather stripping on the roof by running a bead of silicone rubber cement along either side of the strips; and I am going to use 3M Window Weld Ribbon Sealer 3/8" x 15 ' to reinforce the tail light gaskets; and I will use windshield (British "windscreen") sealant to seal cracks in welds between metal pieces and also perhaps the rear hatch gasket. These strategies are advised in two related posts.

More info is in these related posts: Repair manual needed (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63082), I think and Rear seat removal instructions needed for 2008 base model Yaris hatchback (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63074).

I'll try to include some pictures later.

Thanks again to everybody,

R.

[mega-air]

I had the same problem. water in the spare tire issue. Driver side. I have fixed it by sealing the seam under the tail light. You have to remove the rear bumper.
Seal both sides as you have the bumper removed.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ldd97OE-5ifJ7crE58pww-IX99PRs52I/view?usp=sharing

[RMcG]

I had the same problem. water in the spare tire issue. Driver side. I have fixed it by sealing the seam under the tail light. You have to remove the rear bumper.
Seal both sides as you have the bumper removed.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ldd97OE-5ifJ7crE58pww-IX99PRs52I/view?usp=sharing

Yes, thanks mega. I was aware of that problem as other people have posted it on this forum, see 2009 Yaris Hatchback Trunk leak (https://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61873&highlight=tail+light+leak) .

Thanks again,

R.