F10/F11 Grommet of Doom!

This thread should be made a sticky, cracking information with supporting pics. Love the interior colour as well.

 

Hi Paul. If it helps anyone in the future, was worth the effort to post the detail.

Been a good drying atmosphere up here for a change, left the car open all day. Ran a fan heater on cold, pointed under the rear carpet to get the final damp feel out of the thickest parts of the foam backing. Satisfied it was completely dry this evening. Decided to put the final parts back together.

Final picture of the job, just the seat base to put back.



Following picture, one good reason for keeping the car. Gave the engine bay a bit of a clean after making sure I had also cleaned the driver's side drain. You can just see the end of the drain if the top cover (above the brake servo) is removed. Made up a vac nozzle with a piece of garden hose pipe, small enough to get down to it and suck any muck out of the opening.



For the technical... A close up of the 'perishing' grommet. Can see the deterioration.



All finished... car had a wash & wax shampoo this morning, battery fully charged. Looking good as I locked up.

Peter

 

I cleaned mine out today Peter for the first time. Car will be 10 years old in December and has lived outside for almost 7 years of this. I didn't have any internal leaks but thought I ought to clean the area and make a slight hole in the bottom of the panel to allow water to escape more easily. Yellow grommet was slightly discoloured at the bottom but looked fine.

 

Excellent job Peter. I have heard the 'yellow grommet' mentioned as a problem area for leaks on the 6 series and people just removing it completely- I presume it is the same in both cars.. I have to say that I have not had an issue but I do hoover out either side of the bulkhead with a long flexible hose on the Dyson much to the wife's annoyance

 

I too suffered this problem on my first F10, a year or so out of warranty, a sopping rear footwell and the pita trying to dry things out.
It is simply an accumulation of bad drainage design and poor materials and BMW should be ashamed of it provide a fix and recall for way longer then the warranty period.
I have just taken preventative action on my current F10, which is a pita, my remedy, same as last time but fortunately before a leak this time, is as has been helpfully described, but with a fix in-situ twist to:
remove the bulkhead panel over the 'grommet',
take out the handful of crud lying in there,
give the area a jolly good cleaning and drying out,
put silicone sealant over the grommet to metalwork, which is a pita due to no full sighting access,
Spray the area and grommet with dinitrol wax
Modify the panel to allow a drain tube to be fitted,
Then put it all back together.

BM really should be ashamed of this and provide a better solution or fix all problems that relate to it.

 

When you have the cover off be sure to drill a good few holes through, and also if you look closely you can see BMW continued the seal through where the drainage channel is, so its also worth completely removing that in those areas. I drilled 3x 12mm holes and it still occasionally blocks with crud but i can squeeze a finger in. I occasionally run neat washer fluid down, as it'll hopefully help keep clear but also if its leaking i get to smell it in the car. Just a tip.

Love that interior colour.

BTW best wishes to anyone dealing with health issues right now. Keep safe.

 

Wow, look at that grommet! Thanks for posting, it's interesting to see the failure rather than just hear about it

Ed

 

I've just seen this thread (been away from the forum for far too long) and it made me realise that I still haven't refitted the cover plate back on my wife's F10 that I took of in Dec/Jan time. She mentioned to me that the the rear passenger carpet had been soaking wet for some weeks (no idea why she waited that long tot ell me!) and I too found the epic F5 forum thread and checked the grommet - it was still in good condition, there was very little crud build up inside the cover and the local drain hole flowed well so I just cleaned it and refitted it with silicone sealer. I wasn't sure if that had been the source of the water ingress or not, but the carpet has not got wet since, so assume it was that (and not the door liner). We've not noticed any impact (fumes, noise etc) of not having the cover refitted.

I never lifted the rear well carpet, I removed the retaining clips and put weight on the carpet that compressed the foam so that the trapped water shot out of the clip hole, to be collected by a vacuum. That sorted out most of the water and heaters, dehumidifiers and time did the rest.

Dave

 

Brave man, not lifting the carpet.

I tried the compression bit and took off all the surface water that I could. Could still hear it squelching underneath. The foam backing is almost 50mm thick in places, holds a lot of moisture. Mine took several days of open car with heating under the carpet, to get the damp away. Biggest concern for examination was the sub woofer, and how much water was around that.

I slept better with it dried out as quickly as possible.

Peter

 

@Peter well done! I am impressed by your determination and resolution to solve this problem. I doubt that I would have had the patience to do that myself. I would probably have had the hot air blowers drying the car out and had it off to a dealership for a trade-in quote ASAP.

 

I remember trying to take the carpet out but it was too stiff and newtis said the seat needed to be removed, so lifted the corner up as much as I could but actually all the water was in the foam, not as a puddle, so I left it in situ
PS I've just seen the other thread re the closure of newtis - shame, I used it as recently as yesterday just to understand how the headlight ballast worked.

 

Good post Peter , very handy indeed .

 

Hi Peter,

You'll see I'm just new to the forum, which I have just found through searching the internet.

First of all many thanks for the great post - I too have just come across this problem in my 2012 F11 and the information and pics you have put up are hugely helpful, as are the comments others have added too. Not that I would wish this problem on anyone else but in a bizarre way it makes it feel less painful knowing that I am not alone in falling foul of this.

The grommet is out and awaiting a replacement, certainly the easy part of the job...the drying out is the pain! I too have got as far as lifting the corner of the carpet as much as possible, however, I think the only way to go is to be able to get the carpet full lifted and heat under as you say (and also check and dry out the woofer if necessary).

To do this I obviously need to release the front seat. My question for you is, is this just a case of undoing the 4 torx screws? I'm hoping this will make it possible to just move the whole seat forward to allow lifting of the rear carpet in towards and over the transmission tunnel. Similarly when I come to check/dry the front carpet I would hope to be able to move the whole seat into the rear footwell. Looking at your pics it looks like this is maybe what you did?? Is there enough play in the electrical connections to do this without disconnecting them or will I need to do that and maybe even other stuff too like disconnecting the battery? I note references in the thread to newTIS but see that it's also just recently been closed down. What a pain - it sounds like it was a great resource and would have given some clues.

Many thanks in advance.

Gavin

 

Hi Gavin and welcome to BMWLand.

Yes, I simply moved the seat to get at the torx bolts. Forward first, for the rear bolts, then backwards to get to the front pair. Allowed the seat in that runner position to sit as far back as possible. Electrics are no problem, cables long enough, didn't want any disconnections. With the seat to the rear, you can get at the speaker grill screws with the right hex bits. The carpet is split in the middle of the car, that helps a lot, to get underneath and get the heater/dryer in place.

Hope it goes well, any further questions, just ask.

Peter

 

Hi again Peter and thank you for the prompt reply - very reassuring and helpful. Progress following this for info and perhaps help to others in due course below.

 

Armed with the info from Peter above (and a size 50 Torx) the seat is now undone and can be worked around. Removed the speaker grill and the big plastic air vent and it was then a simple task to lift the carpet towards and over the transmission tunnel. I wedged it up out of the way with a tennis ball tube that happened to be to hand. The difference in being able to access the underside of the carpet and floor area to dry everything out now is simply night and day and I'd encourage anyone else facing this to go the extra step of doing this. I now feel confident I will be able to properly dry the rubberised backing out and so prevent any mould build up or smells developing.

It has also allowed me to remove (2 x 10ml nuts) the sub speaker which I was concerned about too. This was definitely worth doing as although the speaker itself is encased in a black plastic housing which makes it waterproof from below, the depression that this sits in was half full of water! This despite there being a 4cm open hole in it. This seems to expose the undertray and there is a small hole in that (presumably for drainage of sorts) which looks as if it could be partially gundged up as it was kind of breathing small air bubbles!! It's a strange design as for there to be a 4cm open hole my first thought was that I must have a grommet missing in the floor, however looking at the bottom of the black plastic speaker housing there is a rather complicated looking white plastic plug of sorts attached to it. When the speaker is back in place this will sit in hole and presumably plug it to some degree. I'm honestly not sure how it's all meant to work - either preventing water entering or allowing it to escape. I'll just dry everything out and make sure I clear any gunge I can from the smaller middle hole that goes through the undertray.

I've got some pictures which I'll add once I get them uploaded to the laptop,

Other observations at this point are that on initial quick inspection the front carpet backing does not seem to be wet - certainly at the point where it overlaps with the rear carpet. I'll need to look further but I'm hoping this is the case which will be good news. More to follow in due course.

 

Welcome to the forum, @Gavin . It's a friendly place with lots of information freely available. We all like to see pics ofMembers' cars here.

 

Definitely look further forward. There's a big lump of dense polystyrene packing which levels up the carpet. Mine was wet underneath, but not saturating the carpet. Was damp and wiring benefited from a bit of warm airflow.

BTW, the speaker cavity does have some sort of valve in the base. Probably pressure sensitive for the speaker, and vents under the car from my observation. The body structure data shows a hole under the valve. Had to clean mine as well.

Peter

 

F34 rear drains under the rear spoiler are no better as the water runs off the rear screen and into the boot!!! Drains are well hidden under the spoiler!!

 

Progress last couple of days (with a couple of pics as promised). Everything being done at a leisurely pace to pass lockdown time! :

Drying out rear under carpet with warm air - pretty much dry now but just making sure.


Above pic shows depression in floor where speaker housing sits. There was water pooled in there as it's a low spot, so worth removing the speaker housing to dry out. Shows the 4cm hole that "appears" to be missing a grommet but isn't.


Underside of speaker housing showing the white plastic bung affair that must sit in (and seal) the hole in the floor when in place. The speaker itself is sealed within this black plastic housing and the only way water will be able to get in is from the top. So this should be safe unless there has been so much ingress that it's been sloshing over the speaker grill. Mine wasn't fortunately.

Cover plate - Cleaned and modified this (as some others have mentioned) to improve drainage. It won't let leaves and mud out but any improved water drainage can only help.


Offending failed grommet


Picked up a new yellow grommet from the local dealer and fitted that. Applied a bead of silicone around it on the basis that it couldn't harm but actually intend to make the checking of it an annual maintenance task. Easy.

Checked for rotting debris which accumulates in the drain underneath the bonnet hinge. It's largely inaccessible but using the excellent tip of gaffer taping a length of garden hose to the end of a vac nozzle allowed it to all be sucked out. Did the same on the on the drivers side whilst I was at it.

Refitted the cover plate. The top L shaped section which needs to engage in rubber seals in the engine bay is the tricky bit. Saw somewhere that applying some neat washing up liquid on that edge helps and it certainly did - only took a couple of minutes to get seated. Three of the torx screws locate easily. The fourth (the one you can't really see from the top is a bit more awkward. I just got the other three half way in and then located the fourth after a wiggling the plate a bit. Job done.

Feeling much happier about all this now.

Tomorrow's plan is to partially lift the front carpet to get some warm air under that. Peter, any advice on removing the front door thresh plastic trim strip - is it a case of just prizing it up with a bit of force or is it supposed to slide forward or back first? I've had a bit of a play but it's reluctant to give up it's secrets easily and I'd rather not break the clips. Thanks again.

Gavin