Roof leak

[drm1harley]

I have a 2020 Edge ST and while vacuuming the rear carpet behind the drivers seat, I found the carpet was very wet. Checked all obvious causes (window not shut completely, bad door seal), and seemed good. I decided to pull the door sill plate and take a look at the extent of water under the carpet. The insulation was soaking wet and the foot well under it had about an inch of water in it.

 

Next I ran some water through a hose on the roof, got inside, and looked to see where the water was coming in. As expected, the door and window seals were good.  I did find LOTS of water running down the aft side of the door still. It was from somewhere behind the interior side panel behind the L rear door.

 

I removed all of the left-side interior panels behind the rear passenger seat and found water flowing in at several places.  See the pictures with yellow and red circles. The water was NOT coming in from around the window seal, but rather from some openings from the inside body panel.  

 

On the roof, I checked for debris in the rails from the sunroof and along the edge of the plastic side panels.  Found they were clear but just in case I did use compressed air and a weed trimmer line to clean what I could not see. Nothing came out.

 

It’s obvious I have a hole or crack in the roof under the rear side plastic panel which I cannot see from the inside. I took the headliner down to see if I could visualize any issue, but the interior body frame blocks any view of the exterior body in that area. This is where the rear side airbag curtain is housed. 

 

I’ve read about drain holes aft of the sunroof slides, but could not see anything or get a weed trimmer line in there. 

 

I’m going to head down the path of removing the plastic roof side rail but asking anyone on this forum for advice on how to remove them. A previous post had a similar problem and there was a link to the service manual for a 2016 Edge on how to remove. The removal steps seemed straightforward. If I do remove it, I know I’ll have to order new plastic clips.

 

Unfortunately, I’m out of warranty and my dealer, which is very large has never seen this before.  I’ve read some other posts on a roof leak and side panels but really no findings or resolution. Of course, we’re getting monsoon rains this year in Minnesota.