jeepbrew

Ah, you are correct. The most recent poster from 4/19 seems to have a problem in the same area as I do (I read the thread a few weeks ago so hadn't seen his post). His solution seems to be what I am coming up with... the dash needs to be removed to either replace or repair the drain plug/grommet. I don't know that I have the time or patience to remove the dash, so I might be heading to the dealer before too long.

jeepbrew

I'm raising the white flag. I give up. I can't get the plug out of the FW but I did manage to get the hose off of it, put a clamp on the hose, put hose back on, tighten the clamp, and do the water test again. As before, it leaked out of that plug area. I guess the plug isn't seating correctly in the firewall, so all I can do that this point is replace it. I called my dealer to schedule the work and didn't get good vibes from them. The guy on the phone said "yeah, we can clean out the sunroof drain tubes". Of course I reiterated that is not what I want done, and I told them exactly where the leak is. We'll see... I'm guessing $800... just a hunch.

jeepbrew

BTW, I took it to the dealer last week and confirmed my problem was the sun roof drain tube grommet at the firewall. Probably a $20 part... $638 to replace (5 hours labor at $120 per). Oh well, it's done. Water tested with no issues and several rain storms over the last week have confirmed my problem is gone.

dwb993

Good to hear jeepbrew! That price is very comparable to the work they did on my car.

Landshark

i may have considered going medieval on the firewall grommet with a can of Flexseal for that much $$$$

glad you got it sorted out.

Daddy Fat Sacs

iTrader: (15)

Did anyone actually fix this issue? Mine started leaking yesterday and I don't feel like dropping $600 to fix 2 plastic parts that were badly designed from the get go

jeepbrew

Agreed. It sucks, but the part is such a PITA to get to. For what it's worth, I've have zero troubles since having it replaced.

dwb993

Me too (knocks on wood)!!

NW_6MT

Are you certain it's the fitting where the sunroof drain fitting plugs into the firewall? I was posting about my experience on the sedan side under 'passenger dash leak' or something similar. For me the wiring harness grommet behind the battery looked way more likely to be the culprit. I couldn't recreate the leak while parked so couldn't be certain though. I had my wife pouring water down the tube entrance with the sunroof open and watched it coming out of the firewall and running across the wiring harness. It didn't seem to be having any trouble getting passed the drain tube fitting in the firewall. It was flowing out at a good rate and right onto the wiring grommet which doesn't look like it would make a good seal at all. I sealed the wiring harness really well with a bead of silicone caulking and tried to put some on the drain tube fitting as well. It's obscenely hard to get to, so I did the best I could.
It's been a little over a week with a lot of rain and no additional leaking. Still aggressively knocking on wood but for now hoping it's solved.
Just something to consider. Good luck.

Rothy11

jeepbrew

I see you posted this almost one year ago. Hoping your fix held up. In my case, I'm positive it was the firewall fitting, as I could watch it happen after removing glove box. Still issue free after having it replaced .

jeepbrew

Yeah, it does suck. Which side is your leak on?

Rothy11

jeepbrew

You could also try feeding some weed eater line through it to break up any potential blockage.

03Mach69Mach

I had this same issue with my 2011 G37xS sedan. Car began to smell like 100 cats had used the interior as their little box. Bad bad smell and also noted that the inside of the windows would have condensing humidity after the car sat for a while. I tried everything from cleaning the AC condenser, change cabin filter. Driving home one night I noticed that the door courtesy lights were illuminated with the doors closed & then began to flicker while driving. After some more investigation, found that all the floor pans were sitting full of water. I think that the water was touching some of the wiring in the door rails/kick panels that was causing the light issues and definitely was the cause of the smell. Carpet pad when wet smells BAD. I removed the water from the interior with a shop vac and it was almost a gallon of water. I took the car to my dealership (100 miles away is the closet Infiniti dealer) and they identified the problem as firewall plastic drain grommet. Like was said, it's about a dollar part, but to access to replace required that the whole dash be removed to the tune of $900+ for the repair. I broke down and paid for this repair as the car was no longer in warranty (although I had been dealing with the smell issues since before the warranty expired & Infiniti would not honor repair even though the issue was brought to their attention during the warranty period...but thats a whole different story).

Fast forward about one year and the car began to show signs of the smell & condensation. It's clear that the engineering on the design of this sunroof drain, particularly the grommet at the drywall is extremely poor and problematic. The firewall is metal and the grommet is plastic with a rubber seal and held in place with some clips.
The design should be more like the AC condenser drain and routing the water below the floorboards to the outside, not down the firewall. I was really mad that I knew the dealer would probably not honor the repair and I would have to pay for this crappy design repair again. So, being the car guy I am, I decided that I could re-engineer the design and fix the problem one and for all. I decided to re-route the drain to below the floor board of the vehicle so that the water exits and does not have the opportunity to leak into the interior.

I pulled the windshield pillar posts off to access the drain tube that attaches to the grommet. This tubing is clear vinyl type and is held to the grommet by pushing on barbs. I removed the tubing and purchased from Napa a same size nylon barbed coupler and from Lowes, some same size vinyl clear tubing. As I am traveling on business, I can't remember the exact size, but I think it was 3/8" id. I will update in a couple days as to the exact size. I then began to find somewhere on the drivers side of the vehicle to route the new drain. Their is an area behind the emergency brake that goes through the fire wall, but accessing that area would require removing the entire e-brake mount to the firewall. Too hard, so I found an area in the floorboard, near the dead pedal that had a flat round embossing. Further investigation found that underneath the car, their is a round opening just below this area. I then took a small drill bit and drilled a hole through the middle of the embossed area and found that it was directly above the lower opening. I then drilled a bigger hole to accommodate the new vinyl tubing. i utilized an L shape barbed fitting at the floorboard and installed the vinyl tubing to about 1" below the opening under the vehicle. I used small zip ties to "lock" the tubing onto all the barbed fittings and sealed the L fitting with silicone at the floorboard.

Passenger side was the same, but easier as the AC condenser drain exits through the floorboard in a oval rubber grommet. I removed the AC drain and grommet, then put the AC drain and new sunroof drain through the oval hole. Sealed with silicone.

Tested both by pouring bottles of water with the sunroof open at the front facing drains and both worked beautifully. So, no more interior water, no more issues with the poorly designed fire wall grommet & all for about $10 in parts and about an hour of my time.

Hope this description helps. I scoured forums and the internet about this problem and found so much crappy information about where the water was coming into my car. It's not the AC drain or the bulkhead electrical connection on the passenger side (unless you have cut that grommet to run a subwoofer power wire). It's the crappy sunroof drain design. No interior water, no more smell and fixed once & for all.