Constant alarm sound from rear hatch

[David3]

Lots of rain here in Austin. Got in car this morning and there is a constant alarm sounding inside the rear hatch. The electric lift of the hatch is not working. Alarm sounds with ignition off or on. Sort of sounds like PDC alarm when you are about to hit something...constant tone. PDC is seemingly working normally.

Any ideas.

[nyquistcondition]

Originally Posted by David3

Lots of rain here in Austin. Got in car this morning and there is a constant alarm sounding inside the rear hatch. The electric lift of the hatch is not working. Alarm sounds with ignition off or on. Sort of sounds like PDC alarm when you are about to hit something...constant tone. PDC is seemingly working normally.

Any ideas.

You have water leaking into right rear well where fuse box is and controller module for tailgate sits. Get a flashlight and remove the panel in the trunk on right side in very rear. Look down below fuse box and I bet there is water. Need to find where drain plugs are filled with debris and allowing this to happen. Electronic box that controls tailgate may already be shot.

Same thing happened to me. If you search the forums you'll find several examples. Good luck.

[David3]

Yup, that was it. Module full of water. Where did you find the plugged drain?

I dried the module, noise stopped, but no electric tailgate operation.

3” of water in the compartment.

[nyquistcondition]

Originally Posted by David3

Yup, that was it. Module full of water. Where did you find the plugged drain?

I dried the module, noise stopped, but no electric tailgate operation.

3” of water in the compartment.

Never did. Replacement module was installed higher to avoid future problem.

[nyquistcondition]

Originally Posted by nyquistcondition

Never did. Replacement module was installed higher to avoid future problem.

It's a long shot but you could put the module in an oven at 125F and bake the water out.

[David3]

Originally Posted by nyquistcondition

It's a long shot but you could put the module in an oven at 125F and bake the water out.

Well, went to remove module to dry with heat/oven and what do you know, tailgate worked when I went to open it. Got it in the oven now...heat gun was too much heat.

Cannot tell how in the world water is getting in, seems like a sealed cavity.

[Tim Cuculic]

I had about 2 1/2 inches of water in my rear compartment. We should start a class action lawsuit for sunroof leaks on the X5. FYI, I let the circuit board dry for a few hours, threw it back in and it works perfectly.

[Kclavelo]

Thanks to you all for the answers you gave as I was able to resolve this issue because of them. Heavy raining in Miami which caused the horrible constant ringing sound and dead automatic hatchback. As soon as I opened the rear fuse box, the whole bottom of the box was full of water and the hatchback control module was swimming in it. I was able to take it out and dry it with a hair dryer and it worked as soon as I plugged it back in.

Later that same afternoon it rained again, so I checked the fuse box again and of course it was flooded again. But this time, since the rain was still fresh I was able to locate the source of the leak by following the drops all the way up. In my case, the source of the leak is a cable that is coming from the sunroof and it runs inside of the rubber band that that goes along the edge of the hatchback. The cable was lifting the rubber band and creating a small hole right in front of one of the two drains that are located on either side of where the hatchback is connected to on the top. That hole was enough for the water to seep in and drain into the fuse box area.

I moved the cable lower down the rubber band so that the opening it creates would be lower and not right next to the drain and then sealed the area of the rubber that is right in front of the drain with silicone just to add an extra layer of protection. Hopefully that should be enough to avoid this issue, but I will be checking after heavy rains just in case.

[skoo524]

did you ever find out how to stop the water from going into the area?

[mrfochon]

Silver this issue today. 1h of time.
At first the board would not work. Cleaned it with solvent (ask your GF) then all good. I moved the module higher to avoid the same issue again.
That being said it’s really not a good design.

Thank you all for this great thread !