OK so this isn't a car forum as such but I know there is at least one person on here who may be able to advise (xtrailman) 
A couple of times now I've had water leaks involving the controller board for my tow bar getting soaked. After some rain over night, opened the car Monday morning and was greeted by the familiar continuous beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep of the controller board soaked in water. Duely removed and dried out. I do not intend on reinstalling it until I have solved the leak. After some testing which of course did not involve a hosepipe, I found the leak was coming from the sunroof, running down the left runner, across the roof lining and slosh, down the side trim and straight onto my tow bar board. After some research online, I was bemused to discover that sunroofs seals are not designed to be 100% waterproof and therefore, drains are necessary. After some careful testing with a small watering can, it is clear that the left hand drain on my sunroof is blocked. Clearly this overflows and runs down the rail like a gutter to the rear of the car, straight down onto the towbar electrics.
There are a few posts on the Aussie X-Trail forums about clearing the drains and even a Youtube video. However, as I've discovered with other things, there are videos / posts about jobs on the same generation of car as mine which are totally different. It seems that most of the X-Trail T31s dump the water either behind the front wheel or into the windscreen scuttle. I've read about some silly filter thing which gets blocked and can be removed. If only it was that simple. My drains dump out behind the rear wheels. The pipes run down the A pillars to god knows where. I've looked and looked for the other end of these pipes with no success. Tried cleaning out with some bike brake cable. I get it about half a metre down but hear it bottoming out on something. No idea if it is a join onto a metal pipe or if it empies out into a gulley of some sort. Don't know why Nissan have decided it needs to run to the back of the car.
Even Nissan don't seem to have any diagram as to the run of this pipe. Hoping to pop to the local garage in the next few days to give it a blast with an airline. Any advice I can glean from the folks here would be appreciated, thanks.
A couple of times now I've had water leaks involving the controller board for my tow bar getting soaked. After some rain over night, opened the car Monday morning and was greeted by the familiar continuous beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep of the controller board soaked in water. Duely removed and dried out. I do not intend on reinstalling it until I have solved the leak. After some testing which of course did not involve a hosepipe, I found the leak was coming from the sunroof, running down the left runner, across the roof lining and slosh, down the side trim and straight onto my tow bar board. After some research online, I was bemused to discover that sunroofs seals are not designed to be 100% waterproof and therefore, drains are necessary. After some careful testing with a small watering can, it is clear that the left hand drain on my sunroof is blocked. Clearly this overflows and runs down the rail like a gutter to the rear of the car, straight down onto the towbar electrics.
There are a few posts on the Aussie X-Trail forums about clearing the drains and even a Youtube video. However, as I've discovered with other things, there are videos / posts about jobs on the same generation of car as mine which are totally different. It seems that most of the X-Trail T31s dump the water either behind the front wheel or into the windscreen scuttle. I've read about some silly filter thing which gets blocked and can be removed. If only it was that simple. My drains dump out behind the rear wheels. The pipes run down the A pillars to god knows where. I've looked and looked for the other end of these pipes with no success. Tried cleaning out with some bike brake cable. I get it about half a metre down but hear it bottoming out on something. No idea if it is a join onto a metal pipe or if it empies out into a gulley of some sort. Don't know why Nissan have decided it needs to run to the back of the car.
Even Nissan don't seem to have any diagram as to the run of this pipe. Hoping to pop to the local garage in the next few days to give it a blast with an airline. Any advice I can glean from the folks here would be appreciated, thanks.
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