Hi All, new to the forum, happy to be here. I test drove a 2008 S2000 at a Ford dealership. First time driving one of these cars--awesome. Super fun. Car was in great shape, drove flawlessly (except kind of weak off the line, but that's par for this car, right?).

Got back to the dealership to do a full walk around, and noticed the panel covering the jack in the trunk was damp. Pulled it up, and there was around 3 inches of standing water in the area under the toolkit. The toollkit was wet and so was the paperwork sitting in the OEM folio. I felt around the interior of the car, and nothing seemed damp. Everything smelled fine as well--no mildewy smell, etc. Sales guy hypothesized it the water was from being washed, or rain + possibly trunk seal wasn't fully sealing. Trunk seal looked fine to me.

Any thoughts?

 

Water in the trunk is not acceptable but not abnormal at this age if left unattended. I've had it happen from two places and neither are trunk seals. Honda's rubber stuff seems to have held up really well as far as I can tell. If you do end up buying the car, use Honda's Shin-Etsu grease on all the rubber seals around the car to refresh/rehydrate them and keep them nice. I'm pretty confident they'll last these cars into old age if that is done.

My first S2k leaked into the trunk vent, as shown in this thread (https://www.s2ki.com/forums/s2000-un...cs-fix-465581/). I'd guess that just about all old S2k's will leak if this is untouched. Both of mine have. My first was also a lease near a beach in it's first life. When I pulled the trunk liner up, I found some sand and a bunch of rust. The impetus of me going looking was that I saw more and more orange coloring on the bottom of the trunk floor pan undercoating. That was from the pan rusting on the inside and dripping water down. I pushed through it from the bottom and realized my trunk floor was rusted through. I think the sand probably had some salt content and catalyzed the rust reaction. I had to pay about $1k to have the whole panel cut out and replaced because it had rusted through. Aside from that issue, the car was super clean and all stock so I figured it was worth repairing properly instead of just patching up the holes.

My second S2k had the first issue and another. I traced water coming from where the soft top meets the rear of the car and into the trunk. I realized the previous owner had a generic upholstery shop install a new soft top and a few things about it looked suspect. I took it to a guy I found on here that was doing soft top installs (2poor2mod, IIRC) to get him to take a look. He stripped everything back, did some testing, and told me the black trim piece that is visible from the outside was damaged when the shop installed the soft top and that was the root cause of the leak. That piece was $250ish and I drove to a different state + paid labor to have it diagnosed and fixed. I'm glad I did and having someone who knew the ins and outs of soft top installs was invaluable but it did cost me $$ and money. Luckily, this trunk pan had no sand and did not rust out. If this car has a new top on it, especially if labor was done at a Ford dealership, I'd suspect this. It's not that they're bad mechanics but working on interior pieces sucks and if you don't do them all the time, you may not know how to get everything out without breaking.

 

Not normal. My car has been thru a "touchless" car wash dozens of time and several violent rain storms with no water in the trunk.

Was the roof replaced? As Jub notes a botched install will allow this. Someone will note where the drains around the back of the roof are that can get clogged. Darned if I can describe where they are.

-- Chuck

 

Thanks so much for the informative responses and links to other threads -- super helpful.

 

I'm sure the dealership touts their "4 billion point inspection" as reason for you to buy from them...

If they didn't notice water standing in the trunk, I would have to wonder what else they missed. If you are serious about the car, ask them to allow you to have a pre-purchase independent inspection performed on the car.

Hopefully the car is in good shape outside of that leak into the trunk.

Good luck!

 

Yes, through the soft top. Where the window attaches to the soft top, and where the soft top attaches to the car. Could be a hack job install. Also, check the rear soft top plastic tray for signs of water

 

Its very common to have water in the trunk of any car this age.

There are vent seals under the rear bumper that wear out. The soft top drains can be clogged. the antenna seal can be leaky. Trunk seals rarely leak. Taillight seals sometimes leak.

The dealer could also have done an inspection...but water could have leaked in afterwards, from driving in rain or washing, or parking outside after a rain.

Nothing to walk away from, provided you make sure it isn't accident damage and you should make sure the trunk pan hasn't irreprably rusted as a result.

If those two things check out...the fix can be relatively easy. find the leak with a hose. fix the leak. Coat the trunk pan with POR15 or similar afterwards, in case you ever have water ingress again.

 

I will also add that if the top is brand new and has just been replaced, the dealership probably did it themselves or paid an upholstery shop to do it. If one of those places caused it to leak by a poor install, do you really want them working on it again? They're likely to just silicone tf out of it and hope for the best. Personally, I'd rather cut my losses and get someone who knows what they're doing to just solve it and be done.

It's a 14 year old niche ragtop car. I'm not justifying it or saying what's right but I'm stating how it works in the real world. Taking out the interior to install a top sucks and is frustrating. When people get frustrated, they start using more force than necessary. Shops that are not familiar with the S2k in particular are more likely to break crap and install it poorly. I suggest pulling out the trunk interior paneling and verifying there is not rust in the trunk pan. Also, like B Serious mentioned, make sure it's not from significant accident damage. Buy the car if everything else, including price, is right. It's far from terminal and can be fixed easily with no long term consequences except $$. If you buy it, verify where leak is coming from. You'll probably want to seal the bumper vent and replace tail light seals either way just due to age. Those things are going to leak on every car eventually. If it still leaks, find someone locally who has installed a bunch of these tops. You're going to have to pay them but they'll figure it out quickly and stop you from chasing ghosts or throwing parts at it. The guy that did mine figured it out within 20 minutes just from disassembling and looking at it. I wouldn't have had a clue what I was looking at and would have had to have taken a guess.

 

Had water in my trunk when i got it,cleaned drainage pipes sealed rear lamps,white grease in wheel well.solved issue.

 

I'm guessing the dealership 1000 point inspection doesn't include one for 'water in trunk'. Not on list, not checked, regardless how obvious.

Would much rather have someone that knows cars and is detail oriented check it over, than any dealerships so called certified program.