[sonora3]

Hello

E91 2006

Ive done a fair amount of searching and come across descriptions of inner door membrane leaks, bottom of windscreen leaks, even leaks by the microfilter housing all causing the swimming pool in the foot well.

However i do have the front sunroof drain blocked problem, seems like both front drains are definately blocked, (water puddles if i pour near the drains).

Things i have tried:

Elec - Cable = Couldnt get far enough down, seemed to get jammed about 10cm in on the drivers side

Strimmer Cable = Too bendy seems to also give up as cant push hard enough

Compressed air (in a can) = No chance was worth a go

Really long joined together by glue gun Cable ties = They seemed the only thing bendy, yet rigid enough to push through one side.

However despite getting the last option pretty far no unblocking happened.

I have tried to look everywhere for the drain tubes (past the A pillars) but cant see them, i slid the indicators our of the wings to see if they ran down there, but no joy.

Does anybody have a picture or a really clear description of where the drain tubes run for both sides please?

or a really good way to unblock these bloomin things!

Its driving me nuts!

Thanks in advance

Andy

[1QuikWS6]

Don't know about your specific year or model, but on my 09' E92 the front sunroof drain exits are located coming out of the body of the car, behind the fender, back near the door.

On DS you will need to remove rear inner fender liner to see it, on PS I need to remove both the rear inner liner, & the windshield washer tank (no big deal - 1 bolt & it slides out toward the front)

You are looking for approx. a 3/4" dia tube just barely exiting the inner body structure @ an angle about midway down from top to bottom

You may have better luck trying to 'rotoroot' the drain out from that direction...

[sonora3]

I have spent weeks hunting for these little drain exits and after spending Saturday morning taking the front arch liners off and only finding spiders and mud i finally found them under the car, towards the front by the jacking point.

Basically you need a Jack, Axel stand, torx set and an 8mm socket.

Jack up the car and starting at the front remove 5 of the hex screws on the sill cover from underneath. Then using the 8mm socket remove all the bolts holding the undertray to the body from the back to the front. you need to remove them all as you want to drop enough down so you can flex this cover away from the other plastic mouldings.

Once the bolts are removed, pull the underbody cover down and feel on the inside of the sill from underneath. The drain exit is between the jack and the front of the sill.

To unblock, get your preferred twine or washing line and start poking. mine took a meter or so before a great whoosh of water came out.

I had exhaused all possibilities to unblock my drains (compressed air, twine, washing line etc). and NOWHERE could i find a picture or description of where these were on the e90/91.

I really hope this helps others looking to sort our their leaking sunroof and blocked drains. I now have very intimate knowledge of how to remove headliners and most of the wheel arch and underbody trims

[Wolf 335]

Originally Posted by sonora3

:...leaking sunroof and blocked drains.

Thank you for figuring this out and sharing with us.

Is there any chance, since you're in "discovery mode", that you could do the same for AC drain?

Cheers

[sonora3]

ha ha i guess by your comment you guys cant find that one either?

sorry chaps for all i know the AC probably connects to these!

Good luck.

[Wolf 335]

AC supposedly drains from above the transmission towards the rights side of the car.

[Skylinemotorsports]

Originally Posted by 1QuikWS6

Don't know about your specific year or model, but on my 09' E92 the front sunroof drain exits are located coming out of the body of the car, behind the fender, back near the door.

On DS you will need to remove rear inner fender liner to see it, on PS I need to remove both the rear inner liner, & the windshield washer tank (no big deal - 1 bolt & it slides out toward the front)

You are looking for approx. a 3/4" dia tube just barely exiting the inner body structure @ an angle about midway down from top to bottom

You may have better luck trying to 'rotoroot' the drain out from that direction...

The drain, is this the front or rear fender? I have been looking for this thing
for days behind both the front and rear liners and cannot find them anywhere....

Looks like it could possibly be under the car also? Jeez, there is not alot of information online for this....

[ctuna]

[baby_elm]

Hey guys,

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the sunroof drain exists were. Also spent some time troubleshooting the panoramic moon roof, so that's included in an appendix. Apologies for the verbose post, just trying to be descriptive about my experience because there as very little info online on this issue.

I have a 2009 LCI E91 328xi wagon with the panoramic moon roof.

Symptoms:
- water puddle in driver side foot well + rear seat footwell (drivers side as well).
- soaked A pillar on driver side
- soaked headliner.
- soaked sunroof cover
- at one point after some heavy rain, my engine lost power due to the gas pedal sensor being moist. It threw a code at me stating something like "accelerator position sensor out of sync." This issue cleared up after a few days of drying, and hasnt returned even after the carpets were damp for a month (yikes).

Solution:
*clean out the entrance of the gutters in the hood*
These are really accessible so i will skip documenting. You can see them if you pop the hood and pour some water on the windshield. They can clogged with a shocking amount of leaves.

*clean out the sunroof drain entrance*
push some firm wire (I used weed wacker twine) through the top of the sunroof drains. The front sunroof drains were easily accessible without removing the moon roof. The rear ones were inaccessible, even after I removed the second sunroof panel, but i could tell that those were draining well, so i wasn't worried.

*clean out the sunroof drain exits*
The rear sunroof drain exits are around the rim of the trunk. They drained fine, so no intervention. The front sunroof drains were not easy to find and not documented well online (this is why im posting). The sunroof drain exits are behind the front lift points! See the photos. I think in principle you don't need to jack up the car, but it sure helps. Remove the liner behind the jacking point, and you can access them. It should take 4-5 of those plastic screws to be removed for you to bend this liner back. Once you have the liner back, you will need to take this twine and try to push it up the drain exit (in image). My drains had some internal channels, so you need to thread the twine through the channels (like a tube within the main tube) and play around with this. It took me about 20 mins per side of fiddling with this twine before i got progress. I could tell there was progress because all of a sudden water started pouring out. (it had been raining recently so there was built up water). I had to push suprisingly hard. I couldn't use compressed air, because the attachment wouldn't fit into either end of the drains. Sharing the kind of attachment in photos You probably need some flexible tubing to do this.

Appendix regarding the moon roof: Removing the moon roof went like:
Put the moon roof in the tilt position. The moon roof has 2 panels. You need to use torx screws to remove the first panel (3 screws on each side). Then the rear moon roof panel can be removed. There are 4 screws. Even once these screws are out, the seal around the moon roof will make this thing super hard to take out, and the front screws on the rear moon roof panel were really tricky to reach. I just forced it, and did some light damage to that seal. It was worse putting it back in but oh well. *Heres the trick* these moon roof screws can be returned the same way theyre put in, however, there is play in the holes of the moon roof panels, and the bracket in the actuator that moves the panels. This means, even if you return the screws, and wrap up the job correctly, your moon roof panels won't be aligned right! You can tell there will be poor fitment in the panels, and even in the closed position there will be gaps between the panels. You need to very carefully position the panel, and tighten the screws, so that its flush when you close the thing. The OEM panels are fitted with locktight too, which explains how they are able to get away with big tolerences on the bracket on the moon roof panels.

Hope this helps and good luck all.

baby_elm