water leak at Safari Roof

[Jean Mercier]

As mentioned before in some other threads, I have a water infiltration in my car.
As my garage didn't find it yet, and as I picked up my car last week, I tried to find it myself!

I am sometimes wondering if my Grenadier is a refurbished Land Rover Defender!

How did I do?
• Car leaned slightly to the right (approximately 2°)
• Removed upper side panels (both sides) and sunshade (passenger side)
• Removed Safari Roofs
• Stopper placed on the safari roof drain pipe (funnel serving as a stopper)
• Water poured into the gutter of the safari roof
• Water exits through the hole of the sunshade or through the right post.
• If I were to lean the car to the left, the water would come out on the left, same place.
PLEASE DO NOT focus on the funnel, the funnel acts as a “cork”, or “stopper”, the water seeps in through the black gasket, not through the funnel.

The leak comes from the gasket of the safari window, I think only from the right (passenger).
Photo below is of the left side, I think only the right side is leaking, but it's along the gasket that the water slowly seeps in! Water always remains in the drainage gutter, because the entrance of the drainage pipe is higher than the gutter, which is clearly a design flaw!

I did ask Google translate to help me in writing this, it is a translation from Dutch. Because I did send this to my dealer Hedin this morning.

I am curious "how" they will reply. And how "fast"!

 

[DCPU]

Brilliant.

One question ~ did the water immediately start to flow or do you think it took time to penetrate the roof seal?

I'm sure it's occurred to you but water and airbags are not a good mix ~ I'd think they would need to be swapped out as part of any fix.

As for a fix, there's been mention (on here?) of revised roof seals for the safari windows.

 

[CountyV8]

Air Bags need to be DRY to work need replacing.

 

[DenisM]

Hi Jean... #For What It's Worth : I don't have Safari windows ...however, during handover last week, when the Brisbane Dealer/Agent was going through a couple of PDI issues, I asked about door seal leaks. He said they checked the position of the door seals and then volunteered that on advice from Ineos Australia, they had repositioned/ reseated/resealed the Safari Window seals during the PDI on a couple of vehicles yet to be delivered... I took it from this info, that it was a known fault. It may assist your "discussions" with your dealer.

 

[trobex]

That's no good Jean. There are a few people with this issue and you might be heading in the right direction finding the problem. The dealer really should fix this for you so your warranty is maintained.

 

[Tazzieman]

Hi Jean... #For What It's Worth : I don't have Safari windows ...however, during handover last week, when the Brisbane Dealer/Agent was going through a couple of PDI issues, I asked about door seal leaks. He said they checked the position of the door seals and then volunteered that on advice from Ineos Australia, they had repositioned/ reseated/resealed the Safari Window seals during the PDI on a couple of vehicles yet to be delivered... I took it from this info, that it was a known fault. It may assist your "discussions" with your dealer.

My agent stated that one of the vehicles they are about to receive (not mine) has 26hrs worth of "advisories".
Not sure what's on the list though, but I assume the safari windows on mine will be attended to.

 

[Eric]

As mentioned before in some other threads, I have a water infiltration in my car.
As my garage didn't find it yet, and as I picked up my car last week, I tried to find it myself!

I am sometimes wondering if my Grenadier is a refurbished Land Rover Defender!

How did I do?
• Car leaned slightly to the right (approximately 2°)
• Removed upper side panels (both sides) and sunshade (passenger side)
• Removed Safari Roofs
• Stopper placed on the safari roof drain pipe (funnel serving as a stopper)
• Water poured into the gutter of the safari roof
• Water exits through the hole of the sunshade or through the right post.
• If I were to lean the car to the left, the water would come out on the left, same place.
PLEASE DO NOT focus on the funnel, the funnel acts as a “cork”, or “stopper”, the water seeps in through the black gasket, not through the funnel.

View attachment 7821073View attachment 7821074View attachment 7821075

The leak comes from the gasket of the safari window, I think only from the right (passenger).
Photo below is of the left side, I think only the right side is leaking, but it's along the gasket that the water slowly seeps in! Water always remains in the drainage gutter, because the entrance of the drainage pipe is higher than the gutter, which is clearly a design flaw!

View attachment 7821076

I did ask Google translate to help me in writing this, it is a translation from Dutch. Because I did send this to my dealer Hedin this morning.

I am curious "how" they will reply. And how "fast"!

And why they didn't find it.

 

[AnD3rew]

My agent stated that one of the vehicles they are about to receive (not mine) has 26hrs worth of "advisories".
Not sure what's on the list though, but I assume the safari windows on mine will be attended to.

Mine didn’t give me an hours estimate but he did say they did have a fair list of stuff to go through, some being done by INEOS on the docks and some by them

 

[DCPU]

My agent stated that one of the vehicles they are about to receive (not mine) has 26hrs worth of "advisories".
Not sure what's on the list though, but I assume the safari windows on mine will be attended to.

Isn't that longer than it actually took to build it?

 

[Tazzieman]

Isn't that longer than it actually took to build it?

The agents are learning on our cars

 

[ADVAW8S]

The agents are learning on our cars

I would rephrase it, the owners are teaching the agents.

 

[Jean Mercier]

Some comments on the comments and questions:

• the water doesn't start to flow immediately, because the leak is small, and the roof trim airbags are swallowing part of the water, but removing the upper trims allowed me to see it much sooners than before.
• I am not a specialist on airbags, but, once dry, wouldn't they function as before?
• they didn't find the leak themselves, because they haven't the patience that I have: only hosing the car with "some water" doesn't give enough water the times to infiltrate.
• thanks for the other feedbacks, of repairs and fixing and so on.

 

[Miki]

As mentioned before in some other threads, I have a water infiltration in my car.
As my garage didn't find it yet, and as I picked up my car last week, I tried to find it myself!

I am sometimes wondering if my Grenadier is a refurbished Land Rover Defender!

The leak comes from the gasket of the safari window, I think only from the right (passenger).

I have never know a vehicle with roof lights (safari windows) or sun roofs not to leak.
They may not leak early in their career but eventually they will, it's like they all have this ambition.
The drain tube is a favourite too, expecially if there are joints or any constrictions.

I am a big fan of 'Captain Tolleys Creeping Crack Cure'.
However, you have 'new' vehicles so the INEOS people should be fixing the issue under warranty (ie. at no charge to you).
Good luck with it .....

 

[emax]

@Jean Mercier, you're are hero! Thank you so much for your excellent documentation.

I just came back from my agent, and before I started from home, I printed your posting and handed it over to the agent. They were thankful.

An even better part is that they obviously regret in some way the dynamics of today's forums. Nothing remains secret. I admitted that a forum can be both a curse and a blessing. But for our forum, I could prove that we have some diligent and meticulous people like you here, which is also in the agent's interest as I could show with your posting - and they agreed.

Mission accomplished.

We also took the opportunity to talk about the error messages on the display, for which I will open a separate thread and then link here.

 

[DCPU]

@Jean Mercier

I just came back from my agent, and before I started from home, I printed your posting and handed it over to the agent. They were thankful.

They should be subscribing, if only to get a heads up on new issues.

Imagine turning up with a new problem and agent says he knows of it, has spoken to Ineos and the fix is...

All very adult.

All too often, the first line of defence seems to be ignorance of the issue, or down playing of the scale.

 

[Jean Mercier]

They should be subscribing, if only to get a heads up on new issues.

Imagine turning up with a new problem and agent says he knows of it, has spoken to Ineos and the fix is...

All very adult.

All too often, the first line of defence seems to be ignorance of the issue, or down playing of the scale.

If INEOS has a decent and motivated Quality Assurance Department, they should indeed subscribe to this forum. But my experience "as a former consultant" is that a lot of industries get "quality assurance certification" like ISO9001 and TS16949 just for the show.
And indeed, my dealer knew of the water infiltration from the beginning (it rained a lot beginning of May) and told me several times (not only once): "first we deliver the cars, then we will tackle your problems". In fact this means: "we will never tackle your problems because we will continue to deliver cars, unless you get really angry."

I am wondering how fast they will react to my "findings" and how they will solve it. The first answer wasn't very promising: "I have already sent the info to our workshop department and they will give me further feedback on this".

I would have liked as an answer: "We informed INEOS and will tackle your problem as high priority, thanks for the help".

​

 

[DCPU]

Some comments on the comments and questions:

• the water doesn't start to flow immediately, because the leak is small, and the roof trim airbags are swallowing part of the water, but removing the upper trims allowed me to see it much sooners than before.

I was thinking more of the initial penetration of the seal by the standing water with regard to your comment that the drain hole is higher.

I'm thinking that the seal may be tested to a standard that involves a time factor. Isn't the vehicle wading limited to 20 minutes?

So it could pass a bench test but fail in your real world situation.

• I am not a specialist on airbags, but, once dry, wouldn't they function as before?

I guess there's at least two elements, the bag itself which may be fine when dried, but water is never pure, so there will be some contaminates; and the propellant. The latter may be more problematic.

I see, almost week in and week out, vehicle recalls for airbags where risk of moisture in the propellant, means the airbag will not deploy fully or in the desired timeframe, or mostly critically in an unphased manner such that metal fragments of the container can be expelled in the direction of the passengers.

 

[Jean Mercier]

I was thinking more of the initial penetration of the seal by the standing water with regard to your comment that the drain hole is higher.

I'm thinking that the seal may be tested to a standard that involves a time factor. Isn't the vehicle wading limited to 20 minutes?

So it could pass a bench test but fail in your real world situation.


I guess there's at least two elements, the bag itself which may be fine when dried, but water is never pure, so there will be some contaminates; and the propellant. The latter may be more problematic.

I see, almost week in and week out, vehicle recalls for airbags where risk of moisture in the propellant, means the airbag will not deploy fully or in the desired timeframe, or mostly critically in an unphased manner such that metal fragments of the container can be expelled in the direction of the passengers.

I think it flows immediately, but slowly, I didn't see a visible crack, but I think the seal isn't very wel glued. But I didn't want to test it thoroughly, because I don't want to worsen the problem. [EDITED: unless it is NOT glued at all by design]
Thanks for the explanation concerning the airbags.

 

[emax]

Here is the link to what I heard today about the display messages and "The Bongs".

https://www.theineosforum.com/threads/let-it-bong.12412759/

 

[emax]

They should be subscribing, if only to get a heads up on new issues.

I agree with you. A few do, many don't.

I think the economics are different in different countries.

In Germany, we have "Zuständigkeiten," but the English translation "responsibilties" contextually does not match the implicit meaning of the German word. It is in some ways closer to "Reviere": precincts.

In a typical large car dealership, there are basically procurement, salespeople, mechanics, management, marketing, and finance. Only the smaller dealerships (which are rather workshops), consisting of one, two or three people, are different. They usually have a good overview of the big picture, but not so in a large dealership.

There, everyone looks after their "turf" and tries to make the best of it. This structure simply doesn't allow you to take care of other things. The German paradigm of "productivity" ultimately means "as few people as possible for a clearly defined responsibility". It's all about control. And they are usually not enough to get their work done. If someone gets their work done, it is considered suspicious to be underutilized.

The consequence is that they concentrate precisely on their task, usually perform it reasonably well and usually very efficient, but have no time to look after a forum, for example. A paid "forum observer" is a no-go in Germany, something unproductive. There are very (very!) few companies that have a media officer or a person responsible for media matters. It's just not seen as something that contributes to productivity.

The old university teachings are still what make up the Bachelor or Master of Administration in Germany: they only count if they make money. And this is supposed to be directly measurable money, $/h/person.

PS: This "structure" (actually it is a problem) unfortunately applies to almost all companies in Germany (but of course not to the authorities. Unfortunately, they are not only unproductive, they also completely lack media competence).