2008 Ford Focus boot leak.

My wife has a 2008 Ford Focus. When it rains, the boot fills with water and she asked me to fix it. Like it's my car all of a sudden?

Don't you hate those types of instructions? I'm a car mechanic am I? Don't think so. Your car, your problem sweetie. However, we did own a 2003 Honda Jazz for some years. That leaked at year six of our ownership period and I did eventually find out why; the roof at the rear where it joins the side body panel is covered in painted body sealant. This sealant pulled away from either panel, leaving a hairline crack. It was here where the water entered. The area was a bit mouldy with green slime, as if pond water. A simple application of bathroom silicone sealant cured the crack.

Finding out where the leak came from on the Jazz was a joy not to be repeated, so I wasn't keen on the Focus at all. The Jazz we took into several dealers, none of whom found the fault, and several suggested we change various seals around the car, even though in the end that was wrong advice. So changing a door seal would fix the Focus? The water was in the spare wheel well at the back of the car - some kind of special anti-gravity water is it? How could water enter at the front of the car, get past several vertical metal structures, and collect in a wheel well? I even fitted a new light cluster in the Jazz as one had a small crack in it. It was only a chance conversation with an Honda mechanic that revealed the body sealant problem.

Google again proved fruitless as an answer for the Focus; all the forums etc. suggested a myriad of cures, none of which worked by all accounts. Quite a few even suggested the rear door seals again. The water is in the boot, not the passenger compartment. And don't you love forums? I'm guessing they are some kind of Darwinian mechanism so as to identify twats and miss fits. I even watched some dick of a Serbian mechanic filling every single seam with black gunk - it must have taken him hours and hours. The video was a two parter - needless to say I didn't really watch either as the whole process seemed madness. Not one Forum answer pointed to the rear three quarter panel body mastic.

The Focus seemed to me to be of the same poor design to the Jazz. Roof to body panel join being covered in sealant. Lifting the plastic trim strip from the roof rain gutter revealed what looked like a hairline crack either side of the sealant, running for about 2cm.  Actually I lie. Lifting the trim revealed nothing but four years worth of muck - you really have to work that stuff out as it has been fried on by the sun. I resorted to hob cleaner to get it off. Anyway, I digress. So a few days ago I applied my trusty silicone sealant to this area and today wife reports back that car is dry inside.

Problem now being that lifting the plastic rain cover bent it, and now it'll not stick back down. Wonder if that Serbian grease monkey has an answer to that? Probably in four parts...... Back to the forums again..... No!!

29/04/2012: Well we've just had two days of biblical rain - lots of floods around here. Just checked the boot of the Focus and it is dry. Normally even light rain fills it with water. So, if your boot leaks, check that rain gutter mastic; it may be at fault.

15/04/2013: You know what? One year on, no leak at all. Zip, nada, nothing. Check those seems folks, check those seems.

Comments

  1. Great advice. Are you talking about the trim stretching from the front all the way to the back on the roof?

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  2. Yes, the black plastic trim that covers what would have been a rain gutter in older cars. Our previous car, a Honda Jazz, had the same issue and it took ages to find where the leak was. Cleaned it out, bit of sealant, and ours has not leaked again in two years. Fingers crossed this works for you my friend ;¬)

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