My posh new car has an en suite shower!

BeenieCat

It's not posh, or new. Well it's new to me. It's a 1996 Clio and with all the rain recently i've discovered a new feature - a leak

The water is coming through where the interior light is, definitely not the sunroof.

In the interests of saving money, does anyone have an idea of how/where to start with fixing it, without resorting to professionals, or will i need special skills/tools? I can't see how i could take the unit off to inspect, and i'm a mere noob with anything so technical

jonathon

funny my laguna did the same think it was the aerial on the roof but never fixed mine.

BeenieCat

Wonder if it's a Renault thing then lol. I never thought of the aerial. Might go put some kitchen sealant round it :rotfl: :eek:

simon1966

Sounds like a leak through the arial base. Probably just a casof titghening a nut and maybe appling silicon sealant to the arial base.

BeenieCat

Would i need to take the aerial off to do that? If so, how?

pulliptears

you need to deal with this asap or it can get costly. The leak in the sunroof tracks down the door post and into the little fuse box under the glove box. When water gets in here it blows the 'brains' of the car and is very costly to replace (something like £450 from main dealer as everything needs reprogramming after).

Trust me, I learned this rather expensive lesson with my 1996 clio about 18 months ago. Leaky, noisy sunroofs are very common in older clios

elsien

Yep, definitely a clio sunroof thing. In my last car the water came in through the interior light but the leak was definitely with the sun roof. You could start off by trying to seal round the edges of the sunroof yourself, but I ended up having to put a new sunroof in. Which after a couple of years started leaking again.
The sunroof bloke said it was a common clio problem, as the plastic from the factory fitted sunroofs tends to warp after a while.

Good luck, because I never found a permanent solution in the 14 years I owned the car.

BeenieCat

Oh dear, i don't like expensive :eek:

I ran my finger around the inside of the sunroof and it's not even slightly damp there, just seems to be leaking through the plastic interior light unit which the sunroof winder is also on

If it's leaking through the aerial i assume that's preferable to the sunroof, i.e easier to mend?

pulliptears

BeenieCat wrote: »

Oh dear, i don't like expensive :eek:

I ran my finger around the inside of the sunroof and it's not even slightly damp there, just seems to be leaking through the plastic interior light unit which the sunroof winder is also on

If it's leaking through the aerial i assume that's preferable to the sunroof, i.e easier to mend?

I just dug out the paperwork, it's the multi timer that the water affects, my price through a garage (not main dealer but an ex main dealer) was £253 including VAT. I remember the man telling me it was usually caused by water tracking down through the sun roof and was very common. At least yours is tracking down to the winder and not the door column though, thats a bonus

BeenieCat

Thanks for looking, pullip. That was expensive:eek: I only paid £250 for the car :rotfl:

I got the shock of my life when i turned a corner and got an armful of freezing cold water though lol!! Maybe i should install an umbrella to the roof of the car :rotfl: I do have my MOT soon so will ask the mechanic for his opinion if he seems friendly enough, although if i can patch it myself somehow then i will cos i'm skint!!

elsien

BeenieCat wrote: »

I ran my finger around the inside of the sunroof and it's not even slightly damp there, just seems to be leaking through the plastic interior light unit which the sunroof winder is also on

Unfortunately that's exactly where mine came in but the initial entry point was still the sunroof. There's some sort of reservoir thingy inside where it gathered. Got worse every time I turned a corner and it sloshed out.
I hope yours is easy to sort but I have to say my experience showed otherwise - I initially thought the water was coming in through the aerial as well.