I recently had a rain event and ended up with water in the front footwells. In response I aggressively tried cleaning both sunroof drains with a copper wire. It was slow going until I seemed to punch through something. Unfortunately I think I punched through the drain tube leading to the bottom of the car where water is supposed to drain out. In another rain event today water came in again, directly under the dash on both the L and R sides indicating it is following the roof pillars down. I think it's getting the wiring wet, too, so I've got a real problem now (turn signals make the emergency flashers come on! Yikes).

Do I have to remove the headliner to get access to the rubber hose, roof-to-road drains that run down the front pillars? Or can I remove a trim piece, somehow, to do this? ANY advice will be appreciated.

 

Pretty much the same as Gen1 MINI with the short tubes and metal connections that drain near the door.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ater-leak.html

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-footwell.html

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...clear-out.html

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...of-drains.html

 

Thank you very much for these links. I searched here on NAM several times and never pulled up any relevant posts; guess I was doing something wrong.

Anyway, I took it all apart and discovered that the two flexible rubber hoses connecting the sunroof drain pan to the steel drain tube were completely off, flopping around above the headliner. Note to self: Use a gentle touch cleaning these sunroof drains in the future! Cleaned them and zip-tied them into place and all is well in my world. Wasn't nearly as big of a job as I feared, especially with the YouTube "Uncle Bob" video I watched.

 

Great, yea we have kits linked to the MINI dealership fix kit, they just replace the rubber hoses and add worm clamps on the top and bottom to fix it.