F12 Rear hatch lid water leak...a primer..

Hello Friends,
My new to me F12 was delivered a week ago. Magnificent car. I can say coming from a 550 Maranello that the F12 is about a million times better in so many ways, particularly in CONSTRUCTION.
However, it has been my experience that each F model has a set of "achilles heels" that plague most if not all of the examples of that model over time. I found very few of these doing a search on the F12, but two that I came across were the rear flank paint bubbling and the rear hatch water leak, as well as engine gasket leaks.

My F12 has no visible signs of bubbling, but after the first wash I discovered that when I lifted the rear hatch to dry the sills inside there was water leaking out around the small light in the lower leather cover. I found water coming out from under the interior trim in several spots. Therefore, I disassembled the hatch to get a better look.

I will advise you to BE CAREFUL if you do this job. The leather on the trim pieces is very fine leather, and I'm quite sure it would be mongo expensive to replace or repair if you marked up the leather. In addition, the inserts in those trims, particularly at the bottom of the window are sprayed with that stupid Ferrari plasticy coating (Ferrari goo) that gets sticky on our cockpit buttons. This goo has a matte finish and is very easily scuffed.

To get a clear assessment of the rear hatch, you must remove all 4 major trim pieces. You start with the one at the LOWER edge of the window, closest to the rear of the car. There is a handle on one side and the dome style light on the other. Step one is to gently pop out the light housing using a plastic trim panel tool OR you could use a screwdriver wrapped with electrical tape. Under the light is a T25 Torx screw. Remove that.
Move to the other side and you will see a plastic cover inside the "handle" that you use to close the lid. GENTLY pop that cover off (it is thin and covered in Ferrari goo) Under the cover are two more T25 Torx. Remove them. The handle assembly will NOT pop out once you remove those screws, it is fastened in from behind the trim so do NOT pry it. Run your hand over the leather trim towards the inner side of the trim piece (the edge that abuts the lower edge of the rear window) and you will find two more plastic handle cup type things. Deep inside each is a screw to remove. Once the screw is out these can be removed by popping them out gently with a pry tool.

You have not completely removed the lower trim piece yet, but there are other things to do first.
Turn your attention to the leather covered trims that run along either side of the rear window. At the bottom edge (towards the trim piece you have just been working on) there are black plastic square trims that hold the rear shelf in. Inside each one of these trims is a single phillips screw. Remove each one, pop the square trim piece out, and you will then find a smaller Torx (I think a T15) holding each side trim piece to the rear hatch. Remove those. Once this is done you can take your plastic trim tool and pry the lower edge of the side trim piece out from the hatch...the trim pieces snap onto the hatch lid by means of standard body fasteners, but be CAREFUL and pry gently but firmly starting from the bottom edge as the fasteners are plastic and can crack. Once you pop the piece loose from the hatch lid and free all of the plastic fasteners, each side trim piece has a hidden nub that interlocks into the trim piece at the top of the rear window that covers the rear brake light assembly. To remove those side trim pieces fully, you must pull straight backwards on the trim piece towards the rear of the car to free it from the upper trim.

Once the side trim pieces are off, set them aside. If you look at the area that the trims concealed, you can now see that the upper and lower trim pieces are actually anchored to the hatch lid by metal brackets and allen bolts, two on each side of each trim, 4 per trim piece. Those must be removed. The upper trim piece has another of those "covers" that needs popping out, this one has a stencil of a car on it.
Once the bolts are removed the only thing holding those trim pieces to the lid are more of the fragile plastic body fasteners. Remove both leather trim pieces (there is a tiny plastic trim ring around the hatch lid lock assembly that needs removing first) and you will now have the hatch internals exposed.

I discovered water inside both of the upper and lower trim pieces. There was significant rust inside of the light assembly.




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Once I got all the trim pieces off and looked at them from the underside, it was clear that I didn't need to remove the small black plastic handle cups that were on the lower trim piece. It wasn't clear beforehand, and I wasn't taking any chances.

There seems to be a general opinion that the water leak begins around the third brake light assembly. I therefore needed to remove this assembly, which is plastic with a gloss black finish on top. It is held in place by four 10mm bolts, as well as two plastic fasteners (one on each outer edge of the trim). There is a single plastic wire connector that must be unsnapped at the midpoint of the trim piece, this is the wire to the brake light. Once that is done, the trim piece can be gently pried up with a plastic pry tool until the fasteners pop out.

Photos below show the third brake light assembly


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The exterior color is canna di fucile, with an Iroko/charcoal interior. More information coming tomorrow, I think I have the water issue figured out.

 

Stay tuned to this location buddy, I’m going to post more very soon on how to fix this permanently.

 

This is a close up image of the third brake light assembly. You can see one of the threaded rods and one of the fasteners. (Image 1)
If you look carefully, the threaded rods have a gasket around them, and this gasket resembles foam weatherstrip. This is NOT a waterproof gasket, to the contrary I was able to squeeze water out of it. Also, you will notice that there is no gasket at all around the fastener. You can also see that there is a rubber gasket that runs around the side and the top edge of the third brake light assembly, but no gasket along the bottom edge. This bottom edge is meant to be pressed up against the rubber lip that runs along the top edge of the rear window (Image 2)

Image 3 shows the rear hatch where the third brake light is to mount. As you can see, no way to prevent water from entering the screw holes (soggy foam gaskets) or the fastener holes (no gaskets).
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I believe that the third brake light assembly is where water entry occurs. Where the third brake light assembly and the window gasket meet, the seal is not strong. Really not along the whole lip, but especially at the outer corners. Gentle water that gets under the assembly from the corners, or pressurized water like heavy rain or hose spray or from a pressure washer can easily make its way under the third brake light assembly and drip in one of the numerous holes pictured.

I do NOT believe that the water enters at the Ferrari emblem. Just like in my 550, this emblem is attached to the body on either side by a cinch ring with a rubber gasket underneath (Image 1).

Therefore my plan was to make the foam gaskets around the threaded rods waterproof by painting them with 100% silicone caulk, and place a complete ring of silicone entirely around the base of the third brake light assembly to ensure that no water can reach those holes, no matter what direction it comes from.
As was said before there are holes in the bottom of the hatch lid for evaporation and humidity equalization, so I will NOT be creating a sealed chamber by doing this.

Painting the foam gaskets with silicone was tedious but overall easy. The silicone was painted on and then allowed to dry overnight. Don't be sloppy (Image 2)

Lastly, a ring of silicone was placed on the body all the way around the light assembly, that would prevent the water from entering the holes. (Image 3).

I popped the third brake light assembly back into place, and cinched the 4 bolts down ALMOST all the way. I will let the silicone harden overnight and then tighten the bolts fully in the morning such as not to squeeze the silicone out and make too thin of a "gasket".


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One of the best times to treat interior leather is with the trim pieces OUTSIDE of the car, so I planned to do this next.

The leather used in MY F12 (and likely yours also) is NOT aniline leather. It beads water. Water does NOT absorb. (Image 1) Therefore, all the creams and moisturizers in the world will make little difference on most of the leather surfaces in the car. Some like to argue that if you apply something like leatherique to the stitching that the conditioners will migrate laterally into the hide from the stitch holes...maybe a *little*, but overall the argument is ********.

Therefore, your attention should be paid towards using products that have UV protection, and that decrease the effects of abrasion on the leather. Some people like to put something like 303 Aerospace protectant onto the leather and buff it. This product has excellent UV protection but can sometimes give a sheen. I want a matte look as the factory intended. My absolute favorite product to use to date is Gyeon Leather Shield. This is a ceramic-based coating for leather, that maintains flexibility. It is NOT a hard glass coating for leather. It is easy to apply, dries in about an hour, and is usually good for 3-6 months depending on your use. If you apply it to trim pieces that never get touched or the rear deck or something, it can last longer IMHO.

When preparing to coat leather you want the surface as clean as possible. Gyeon also makes a leather cleaner that is gentle and acts to strip off oils on the leather to improve the bond of the coating. You can also use Leather Master Soft cleaner (also a personal favorite).

I was preparing to clean and coat when I noticed that in typical Ferrari fashion, the leather has already started peeling off the back side of the trim (Image 2). It appears that Ferrari still uses **** glue to apply their leather to the trim pieces. Coating will have to wait now until my shipment of Barge's all purpose cement arrives to fix this loss of adhesion.
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You can’t see it in the photos, but under that rear windshield gasket I also put more silicone to sort of prop up the edge of the gasket. Any water that gets in that little corner now would be a maximum of one or two drops, now that it is sealed the way I have done it. When I wash any car I always blow it dry, and try to blow out those areas really well. And honestly I don’t take my toy cars out in the rain. So for me I feel comfortable that any water in that little corner will not be an issue. In addition, the water can run down the Hatch door alongside the window under the rubber gasket.

 

Nope. Put a good squirt of silicone under there to prevent that from happening.