Sliding door water ingress

I bough t a few cans of compressed air to blow the drains out every few months, the same tins that are used for cleaning computers and keyboards, they have a long thin tube to use

I have a second hand small compressor in the garage that I use for car and bike tyres etc as well. A very handy bit of kit.

This is a very helpful thread.

My parents have a 2020 Fairford and they have a leak from a sliding window, except it's the one on the offside (not the sliding door).

Are the windows installed identically?  I.e. the same two drain lines etc.  The van is still under warranty so would the first port of call be Marquis or a Fiat van service centre?

One thing I have noticed...  I have a 2020 Fairford Plus also on a Fiat chassis.  I've noticed the offside sliding window in my parents' van has a lot more "play" when prodded from the outside, mine feels completely rigid (and doesn't leak).

Yes, both sides have the same gutter and drain arrangements with a hole and tube at each end. It's a conversion fault - they remove the windows to apply the tint and then bond them back in without a care about the drain tubes, so they get squashed with the bonding. Best bet is for them to go back to the dealer or converter and have them cheese wire the window out and do it properly, leaving a gap in the bonding for the drain tube.

That's great thank you, we'll start with Marquis.

Following a recent water ingress through the front drain of the nearside sliding window I took the van to my local Kwikfit and asked them to blow compressed air through each of the 4 drains. All appeared to work except the front nearside drain so today I investigated further.

Working inside the van I’ve exposed both drains and am surprised at what I’ve found. I cut the top of the front drain cover and peeled it back as shown in the first picture. I expected to find a capillary tube underneath but there’s nothing. The inside face of the cover has a central vertical section that is recessed, but to only the minutest depth, which I can just feel with a finger nail, I would guess less than 0.25mm. If this really is the water channel then no wonder it can get overwhelmed in a storm. The slightest bit of crud will block it. 

The other surprise is that the vertical sides of this plastic piece are not sealed to the glass, so there’s nothing to stop the water from leaking out around it.

Am I missing something in terms of how this is meant to work? If not, then it’s an even weaker design than I’d imagined and an ineffective way to get water out of the lower frame of the sliding windows. The second picture shows the rear nearside drain. Judging by the water mark to the left of it, water has found it’s own way from the sliding window frame and bypassed (or supplemented) the drain completely.

My plan is to clean out the drain I’ve exposed with compressed air then stick it to the glass taking care not to block it with adhesive. As a back up I think I’ll adopt the suggestion made earlier in this thread, to wedge a piece of absorbent fabric in the lower frame of the window to wick any water away. I just don’t see how I can rely on these drains to do their job.

We’re about to drive sections of Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way so the window drains will likely get quite a soak test (pun intended)! In the longer term I may look at constructing a different drain arrangement using small bore tubes routed through the door and which drain out the bottom. 


Tim


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The problem is not the small size of the drainage ducts or that they're not particularly well sealed to the window, the problem is that their outlets are blocked and the duct squashed as the fitters don't leave a gap in the adhesive when they bond the windows on. If you get a good enough blast of compressed air down from the top, with nowhere for it to go out of the bottom it will just split the drain duct away from the window.

What you need to do is get a junior hacksaw blade and pull the locating pin out of one end. You can then chop the blade off at an angle with an angle grinder to make a very pointy saw blade that you can then use to poke and saw away the adhesive that is blocking the drain. You have to take precautions not to damage the paintwork. An alternative would be to have a window company take the entire window out with a cheesewire approach, and then rebond leaving an appropriate gap around the drain channels

Kemmerton with exactly the same problem. Thank you Joe Fox for your informative post. Excellent! Your photo of water ingress on the door panel is exactly like ours
Thanks to Tim from Bath also.Again........!
How good is this forum.

I used the above advice as I had a soaked sliding door panel. After a complete soaking over the last couple of days the panel was dry today, even though the van got the full force of the rain. Unlike the cars stuck on the A27 and our conservatory floor!

Thanks for the tips
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Richard

Well... once again this forum and all its participants are to be applauded!
Imagine my woe when I suddenly found on our, new to us, kemerton XL 2014, all soaking wet panel on the inside of our sliding door from top to borrom!
So following this forum this is what i did.
1) 'P' profile rubber seal along the top of the door opening.
2)  'O' profile rubber down the rear side of the door and over the top of the door.
3) poke wire up under window from outside, make hole where silicon has blocked drain.
4) replace wire with small pipe.

Torrential rain last night, dry door panels. Whoop Whoop!!
Many thanks to all the contributors to my success!

For Winter storage and when jet washing I cover the gap in the glass outside with electrical tape. Prevents dirty water getting in and helping to block the drainage. Not a cure but helps to prevent a problem.

If anything, you want a lot of water going through the drains to keep them clear. If you don't, any dirt in there may biologically grow and block more.