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Mini Countryman 2011 | Water Leak in Boot

Mini Countryman 2011 | Water Leak in Boot

Name: Mini Countryman 2011 | Water Leak in Boot
Uploaded: 2020-11-22T00:00:00+00:00
Duration: 1 min 37 s
Description: This Mini was leaking rain water into the boot, and from there the water can get elsewhere.

Video transcript

0:00 Right, okay, so back onto the Mini Countryman 2011 plate. Now we're going to show you what's happening with the rear air vents, which are behind the rear bumpers. So my colleagues just put in a hose up underneath the rear bumper there. We've got a flexing camera in here, which we're going into the rear box section. And that black cover there is your box section, sorry, in the box section is your air vent. It's quite hard to see, but there is water coming through that air vent. So there we go, we can see it just drilling down the top

0:42 of that one now. So it's quite hard to see, but that would be the driver's side air vent. Just trying to give you a better look at that air vent now, it's just leaking on that corner, just here. Okay, so we've got this one leaking here, and if we just quickly come over to the driver's side, sorry, the passenger side one, and we just do exactly the same. So I just quickly put my camera down into the box section, and what we're looking for in there. Okay, and so this is

1:21 the passenger air vent, so we can see the shiny bits there, which is very, it's very very faded. But you can see that they're letting water through, and then obviously that's filling up the boot section. So there we go.

Nov

2020

This Mini was leaking rain water into the boot, and from there the water can get elsewhere.

We found the cause of the problem to be that water splashing up from the road up under the back bumper is running down the rear valance, and getting past the seals on the rear air vents and finding its way into the box-section which is inside the car.

Very many cars have these hidden rear air vents which are designed as a one-way outlet so that if the heater is blowing in air from the front of the cabin, or you drive along with your windows open, the air has somewhere to escape out of the back. So there are quite large air vents which are usually hidden behind the back bumper. It is not unusual to find that these are the cause of leaks on many makes and models of cars because they are not only hit with water splashing up from the road, but all the dirt and pollutants to which can either gunk up the gate or perish the silicone seal.

Solution: Remove the vent, clean up the area. Replace the vent.

Question: "So you just stick the vent in and seal around it to stop the leak?"

Answer: You could do that, and many of the garages do this... but it's not what we do. We prefer to restore cars to factory standards, so we replace the vent with a new part. Usually these parts are not expensive, on some models the fault is so common we actually keep them in stock. Because the manufacturers are aware of the leaking vents, some have even improved the design to prevent future leaks.