Subaru Outback rear windscreen seal rotten

[OutbackLuke]

Hey everyone,

 

After having an old Nisan Ceffiro for years, I have decided to upgrade and went for a 4th gen Subaru Outback. Love the car so far, but I have recently noticed one issue and wanna ask for the experience of the local crowd.

 

Disclaimer:  my level of knowledge about cars is pretty low (until my old Cefi started falling apart, I didn’t particularly care about them) and English is not my first language – so on occasions I am better at pointing at stuff rather than naming it.

 

That being out of the way, the problem I am talking about is that the rubber “seal” at the bottom of the rear wind screen has partially rotten away and has some holes in it (photo attached). To me this looks like there will be water flowing through the cracks somewhere, and that somewhere seems like the construction of boot door itself. This sounds like something that can badly backfire in not-too-distant feature. I have taped it for now, and have talked to some wind screen replacement guys over the phone, assuming this would be an easy fix. Turns out its fixable for few (2-3) hundred bucks, but  someone also told me that this “seal” is only cosmetic, and the water that seeps through the cracks leaks out…somewhere… without causing damage. That would mean I should probably fix it at some point anyway, but no need to rush it. At the same time, to me this sounds a bit strange, and I am not entirely sure we were both talking about the same thing.

 

Anyone has some experience with this issue (or knows enough about the boot door construction)?

 

Cheers,

 

Luke

Edited January 13, 2020 by OutbackLuke
Typos

[Firenza]

For a 4th gen (BR) Outback/Legacy you should be okay with leaving it as is. Its a bit ugly, but it wont leak unless something else has gone very wrong!

 

The panel your looking at that has the seal on it is actually a removable of trim. The rubber seal is just to stop it making noise when it touches the window.

 

 

So the piece with the subaru badge on it and the chrome strip is what I'm on about (this one has an extra stick on spoiler, but its the same deal)

 

This is the exact same boot lid minus the trim. As you can see there is a mark running along the window where the trim makes contact with the glass, meaning the window itself actually goes lower down behind it for a bit.

 

 

So even if that seal was missing completely, worst that would happen is that the water would run down to the number plate, as the lights have a seal too. So unless waters starts to run upwards, you should be fine

 

[OutbackLuke]

22 hours ago, Firenza said:

For a 4th gen (BR) Outback/Legacy you should be okay with leaving it as is. Its a bit ugly, but it wont leak unless something else has gone very wrong!

 

The panel your looking at that has the seal on it is actually a removable of trim. The rubber seal is just to stop it making noise when it touches the window.

 

 

So the piece with the subaru badge on it and the chrome strip is what I'm on about (this one has an extra stick on spoiler, but its the same deal)

 

This is the exact same boot lid minus the trim. As you can see there is a mark running along the window where the trim makes contact with the glass, meaning the window itself actually goes lower down behind it for a bit.

 

 

So even if that seal was missing completely, worst that would happen is that the water would run down to the number plate, as the lights have a seal too. So unless waters starts to run upwards, you should be fine

 

 

Sweet as, thanks. With respect to that being ugly, well... I can at least decide whether to keep there rotten black moulding, or brand new blue duck tape :).

 

[Firenza]

5 minutes ago, OutbackLuke said:

 

Sweet as, thanks. With respect to that being ugly, well... I can at least decide whether to keep there rotten black moulding, or brand new blue duck tape :).

 

 

The rubber part is available as a spare part, so if you feel capable taking off the trim, you could replace it. The part number is 91713AJ000