BMW F10 water ingress

Stallingrad

There is a potential problem with water ingress on F10 and F11 BMW's. The water channels for the passenger side wipers go down the bulkhead and past a large hole in the bulkhead for the steering column on LHD cars. The hole is filled with a large yellow gromit. The problem is that the narrow exit for the water can get blocked by debris, resulting in water tanking up over this gromit, which can then fail sending water into the car, usually first detectable with a damp rear passenger footwell.

Not a job I would trust to anyone else as you would never know if it had actually been done, so went at it myself.

Access is either from under the car, removing the middle plastic panel and loads of blots, or easier from the top, though still awkward as access is tight. The gromit is covered by a sound deadening plastic shroud which is removed via 5 bolts, very awkward as one is hidden so you are working blind. Making sure not to drop anything into the engine bay I tied my ratchet to my wrist with a piece of string.

One the cover was removed a bunch of leaves fell out, luckily and I had none of the water build up that has effected some cars. Gave it a good clean. Once the panel is removed removed you need to cut an inch of seal to allow the water to exist more easily, and I dremmeled the exit point to make it a bit wider. Putting the cover back on is a bit more awkward, lots of puling and pushing to get it to seat, then tighten the bolts, job done.

I had water ingress on a previous car that required the seats and carpet out, a massive, horrible job. Never want to go though that again. Can see myself repeating this job annually.

Harcrid

Worth checking the wheel well in the boot also which can sometimes be affected by water ingress. With all of the electronics in that area it can cause an expensive failure. A friend of mine was affected by this recently.