[AntF]

Good to hear - hope the problem is fully sorted. I still keep checking for water on mine and so far all seems OK.

 

[The Bald Buzzard 1]

Good to hear - hope the problem is fully sorted. I still keep checking for water on mine and so far all seems OK.

I had exactly the same problem on mine..new vents sorted it.

 

[eddie bermuda]

I realise this is an old thread, but since I've just encountered the same problem on my 2013 XF, I thought I'd make a couple of observations if I may?

Firstly, you don't need to remove the bumper to access the vents. Boot latch trim and "carpet" needs to be released to access the three (10mm) nuts to release the lamp clusters. Remove the lamp cluster (and clean up the muck underneath, naturally) and then you can access the vents. I found the best removal method was to ease the top of the vent out from the inside, whilst supporting the vent from the outside (i.e. between the vent and the bumper). There is then enough space to carefully wiggle the vent out.

Sure enough, the entire top seal had vanished on my RHS vent (haven't checked the LHS yet). I have two new vents on order (part number as per previous post and price about the same - £21 all in for two from the local dealer. You can buy them on line but the P&P was crazy money.)

Whilst I'm waiting for the vents (promised today but no notification from Jaguar so far*) I am trying a temporary fix as we have heavy rain forecast. I have wrapped the entire vent in a sandwhich bag and rolled a bit of excess bag up into a "seal" at the top of the vent and re-installed it. My theory is that the water will run over the sandwhich bagged seal and drain outboard rather than into the boot. I'll update this thread if it works...

Rear lamp cluster re-fitted although I have left the "carpet" loose and the boot latch trim off to save time if the vents have arrived.

Final thought: crap design but a relatively easy and cheap fix.

* Edit - The God of Coincidnce struck and the vents were ready to collect at Jaguar. By the time I got them it was too dark (and cold) to do anything further, but first chance I get when it isn't -2C and raining I'll try and get take some pictures showing the procedure.

 

[cutlea01]

Welcome to the forum Eddie, and thank you for your clear update. Pop over to the new member's section and give a full intro, pics of your car etc.

 

[drewdrew]

Funny enough, I went to the boot to get my ctek charger and I saw a little water in the battery tray and under the sunwoofer.

Did a bit of research and picked up two new vents this afternoon. Also got some black sealant for those covers near the side of the light clusters as they don't fit flush.

 

[eddie bermuda]

Update and step-by-step guide as promised...

I had removed and checked the RHS (Driver's Side) vent last night, and found it to be badly perished and split.

Here is a comparison between the old and new seals...old one on the left. As you can see (anb as previous posters have mentioned) its a sort of foam that appears to have expanded, embrittled and perished.

I wrapped the seal in a plastic bag and refitted it. I hadn't checked the LHS (Passenger Side) at this point, so any water ingress overnight would likely still have occurred. Having picked up the two new vents late yesterday, I proceeded to change both this morning. Here we go...

First job is to remove the boot lock plastic trim. There are three plastic inserts and phillips screws holding this in. Remove them and then prise out the inserts. This will allow you to pull the trim piece off. It comes off with a little bit of persuasion and sort of peels back towards you, assuming you are standing behind the car looking forward Then, remove the two plastic "nails" that hold the "carpet" trim in place. These need to be prised out using a flat screwdriver head (or if you have a trim removal kit there'll be a specific tool in there). Once they're off, you should be able to peel the weather seal from aound the outside of the trim, and pull the trim inboard so you have access to the rear light cluster nuts (shown highlighted), as below:

10mm ring spanner will undo these. FOD (Foreign Object Damage) Warning - Be very careful not to drop them into the battery well!!! Once the nuts are off, the rear lamp cluster slides out and there is a connection to be undone. With the lamp cluster removed you have access to the vent. This is the RHS that I had wrapped in a plastic bag as an experiment, as we had been forecast heavy rain last night and I was hoping to reduce water ingress. Not sure if this was successful or not!

LHS is similar. In this picture I have ringed the four attachment lugs that must be released/engaged when you remove/install the vent.

WIth the bumper still fitted you can access the outside of the vent as well, and there is (just) enough space to wiggle each vent out. On the LHS, here is the wiggle sequence I found worked best:

# 1 - push down on the top of the vent and release the top lugs. Whilst supporting the vent in the gap between body and bumper, pull/push the vent until it is free.

#2 - Rotate the vent "clockwise" (so the top of the vent is facing inboard) and pull the vent inboard as far as you can.

# 3 - Pull the vent up and rotate anti-clockwise, and it will come out into the space vacated by the lamp cluster.

Installation (as they say) is the reverse of removal! The vent can be fitted by reversing the removal wiggle sequence, and then, once you have repositioned the vent into the hole, engage the four lugs firmly into the space. There will be a light click and you'll feel them "sit" into position. This took a couple of goes and hopefully I got them sitting firmly against the metal edge.

Refit the lamp cluster. Connect up the loom and then carefully position the cluster into the car. FOD Warning Again: be careful fitting the nuts as dropping them into the vehicle would be bad thing (there is the potential to interfere with the electrics in that area, plus they're going to rattle and drive you crazy). I inserted a little cardboard tab to make sure I got the correct gap between the bottom of the cluster and the top of the bumper, as shown below:

Refit the carpet trim in the boot. Make sure you get the boot seal positioned correctly when you do this, so that it sits on top of the trim and provides a seal with the boot lid. The final step is to re-fit the boot lock plastic trim, and then test your lamps work. I have left the spare whell well empty so I can check the new vents have solved the problem. It's p***ing down here so that verification shouldn't take too long! If there's still water ingress, at least I know it's not the vents.

Hope this has proved a useful write up, and helps anyone with the wet wheel well problem to takle the job themselves!

 

[PeteA]

Nice write up Eddie that will help those that want to do this for themselves..

Welcome to the forum, hope you stick around.. and don't need too much of the other tips and help on here..


Pete

 

[AntF]

I also removed the light clusters when doing mine but it is possible to leave them in place and remove and insert the new vent through the boot. There is enough material on the vent to be able to pull them into place. Removing the lights allows you to clean out the crap that gets in there and is easy and quick to do though.
This seems to be relatively common as my son's Corsa had the same issue.

 

[piskun8v]

It happened to me unfortunately just over a weekend... Can someone please post like where can I order left side?!

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

 

[idrobbo]

It happened to me unfortunately just over a weekend... Can someone please post like where can I order left side?!

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

Jaguar dealer.

 

[XF_luvva]

Thanks everyone for the info. Seeing as it's just the seal that's the problem, could you not remove the vent, take off the seal and lay a bead of sikaflex where the seal was, and feed it back into the hole? Would that work? Or, get butyl mastic bead and put in on (maybe need to warm up the butyl first)?
This stuff looks like it's mastic in a tube:

Roof & Gutter Sealant

Get roofing ready for even the heaviest downpour with this nifty cartridge of rubberised roof and gutter sealant. Just the job for fitting and fixing roofs, it forms a permanent water-resistant and weatherproof barrier. It's versatile too and will stick to most common roofing materials like...

www.toolstation.com

 

[XF_luvva]

So I went out and put my money where my mouth is and bought the sealant. I had a look in the trunk and it's all clear/dry. But I'll still do the mod on a nice warm day.

 

[piskun8v]

I glued cracked sponge add some transparent silicone around that slot and set sponge/gasket on top of it. Unfortunately do to the extremely damp I don't expect to hold for long looks like next week need to organise visit at dealer unfortunately can't found different places to ordered for

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

 

[XF_luvva]

I glued cracked sponge add some transparent silicone around that slot and set sponge/gasket on top of it. Unfortunately do to the extremely damp I don't expect to hold for long looks like next week need to organise visit at dealer unfortunately can't found different places to ordered for

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

For £2.67, maybe try the sealant first?

 

[norguar]

Update and step-by-step guide as promised...

I had removed and checked the RHS (Driver's Side) vent last night, and found it to be badly perished and split.

View attachment 189605

Here is a comparison between the old and new seals...old one on the left. As you can see (anb as previous posters have mentioned) its a sort of foam that appears to have expanded, embrittled and perished.

View attachment 189616

I wrapped the seal in a plastic bag and refitted it. I hadn't checked the LHS (Passenger Side) at this point, so any water ingress overnight would likely still have occurred. Having picked up the two new vents late yesterday, I proceeded to change both this morning. Here we go...

First job is to remove the boot lock plastic trim. There are three plastic inserts and phillips screws holding this in. Remove them and then prise out the inserts. This will allow you to pull the trim piece off. It comes off with a little bit of persuasion and sort of peels back towards you, assuming you are standing behind the car looking forward Then, remove the two plastic "nails" that hold the "carpet" trim in place. These need to be prised out using a flat screwdriver head (or if you have a trim removal kit there'll be a specific tool in there). Once they're off, you should be able to peel the weather seal from aound the outside of the trim, and pull the trim inboard so you have access to the rear light cluster nuts (shown highlighted), as below:

View attachment 189608

10mm ring spanner will undo these. FOD (Foreign Object Damage) Warning - Be very careful not to drop them into the battery well!!! Once the nuts are off, the rear lamp cluster slides out and there is a connection to be undone. With the lamp cluster removed you have access to the vent. This is the RHS that I had wrapped in a plastic bag as an experiment, as we had been forecast heavy rain last night and I was hoping to reduce water ingress. Not sure if this was successful or not!

View attachment 189609

LHS is similar. In this picture I have ringed the four attachment lugs that must be released/engaged when you remove/install the vent.

View attachment 189611

WIth the bumper still fitted you can access the outside of the vent as well, and there is (just) enough space to wiggle each vent out. On the LHS, here is the wiggle sequence I found worked best:

# 1 - push down on the top of the vent and release the top lugs. Whilst supporting the vent in the gap between body and bumper, pull/push the vent until it is free.

View attachment 189613
#2 - Rotate the vent "clockwise" (so the top of the vent is facing inboard) and pull the vent inboard as far as you can.

View attachment 189614

# 3 - Pull the vent up and rotate anti-clockwise, and it will come out into the space vacated by the lamp cluster.

View attachment 189615

Installation (as they say) is the reverse of removal! The vent can be fitted by reversing the removal wiggle sequence, and then, once you have repositioned the vent into the hole, engage the four lugs firmly into the space. There will be a light click and you'll feel them "sit" into position. This took a couple of goes and hopefully I got them sitting firmly against the metal edge.

Refit the lamp cluster. Connect up the loom and then carefully position the cluster into the car. FOD Warning Again: be careful fitting the nuts as dropping them into the vehicle would be bad thing (there is the potential to interfere with the electrics in that area, plus they're going to rattle and drive you crazy). I inserted a little cardboard tab to make sure I got the correct gap between the bottom of the cluster and the top of the bumper, as shown below:

View attachment 189617

Refit the carpet trim in the boot. Make sure you get the boot seal positioned correctly when you do this, so that it sits on top of the trim and provides a seal with the boot lid. The final step is to re-fit the boot lock plastic trim, and then test your lamps work. I have left the spare whell well empty so I can check the new vents have solved the problem. It's p***ing down here so that verification shouldn't take too long! If there's still water ingress, at least I know it's not the vents.

Hope this has proved a useful write up, and helps anyone with the wet wheel well problem to takle the job themselves!

Wanted to say thanks for this write-up, helped me swap the vents over on my XF

I noticed the nearside vent seal had popped out over time (assuming it didn't leave the factory like that??)

A couple of points on how I ended up doing it:

- I couldn't get the plastic boot lock trim part removed- the screws were just spinning no matter how hard I tried to remove them, so it stayed in place. I could fold the carpet back enough to get the access needed without removing the plastic trim though

- Getting the actual vents out/in I found it easier to spin them around and pull them out into the boot itself instead of up into the rear light cluster cavity- the gap between the bumper and the frame was just too small without flexing it, but a couple mins playing with spinning them around meant they came out inside the boot easily enough

The foam where the light cluster touches the frame/drainage channel has perished over time for me so if the leak is still there, this will be where I look next

Great tip on the cardboard to align the cluster!

 

[Red cat]

Basic question, but how do you tell there's water in the boot? Is it obvious or not generally observable. I'm getting terrible misting up at times which I'm hoping is a blocked/drenched pollen filter. Service is due in a couple of weeks so will ask for it to be looked into.

Hi, you will visually see the water either side of the sub woofer enclosure that the spare wheel and jack sits within. I found a good inch in my XF 2012 . I’ve not gotten around to the filter repair around light clusters yet, I will possibly just block both off permanently- I’m noticing slight rusting around the top flange of both hinges also, bead of sikaflex etc. I’m guessing the drain plug is under the battery as no drain plug in my boot. Maybe drill 10mm hole with a bung in 1 of the lower ducts.

 

[cutlea01]

Don't block the rear boot vents behind the lights, they're there for many reasons, ventilation, equalise air pressure and allow the heater blower to, well, blow air into the car. If the air can't get out, air can't easily get in. Not to mention occupant's eardrums popping when a door is slammed.

 

[benneyw]

Hi Everyone - i realise this is an older post so hope for some response. I've been tackling the same issue. the mentioned vents look to be in good order but have found water pools on the seal either side of the chrome scuff plate and overflows into the boot. Spraying water from the bottom of the boot up to the top of the light cluster results in no leak but when spraying to the top of the boot the leak appears. I assume the two hole in the lower edge of the boot lid are drain holes, which happen to be in the same position that the water pools in. could water be getting into the boot lid and draining out and overflowing into the boot? If that is the case is the fix to prevent water getting into the lid, but if there are drain holes present is it anticipated water would get in? Or replace the boot seal? If the later how is the chrome scuff plate removed? and is the new seal simply pressed on or is a sealant needed?

Thanks in advance!

 

[sandmaennle]

Could you post some pictures?
Estate or sedan XF?

Cheers
Dirk

 

[benneyw]

Could you post some pictures?
Estate or sedan XF?

Cheers
Dirk

it is a sport break. Water pools to the sides/underneath the scuff plate and then overflows into the boot. I have taped over the suspected drain holes and has no impact. I can only assume as water runs down the channel it manages to cross the seal? Issue occurs on both sides.
Thanks