Fiesta Ghia 2005 ever since having the window mech replaced on the offside rain has leaked into the door. I can actually hear it sloshing around when cornering on two wheels. No drain holes at the bottom that I can see.

1) Does anyone know why this started? (OK it started in the rain)

2) All I can think of is the caveman approach of getting two rubber plugs and drilling matching holes in the foot of the door, but I suppose I should tackle 1) first?

A small amount of rain is expected to get inside the door past the window scraper.  I would be very surprised if there wasn't any sort of drainage at all.

If a lot of water is getting in then check whether the window scraper is bent and bowed away from the glass when closed.

There are definitely drain holes where the outer skin meets the inner panel on the bottom lower edges, they're obviously blocked.

Thanks Guys, sorry again for slow response, sometimes I get emails from here sometimes not. Everything is ticked!

"Bottom lower edges".........do you mean under the door edge where the two plastic studs are that hold the fake-upholstered outer skin? I'll have a look in daylight

10 hours ago, fastrack1966 said:

fake-upholstered outer skin

What does this mean?

The drain holes will be on the bottom edge of the door where the metal outer skin of the door meets the metal bottom of the door.

Like this:

Thanks will take a look later.

Throughout this sorry door saga I've been confused with the terms skin, panel, card etc. The fake-upholstered outer skin I referred to is the one that holds the pull-handle, window switch, speaker. Not the plastic panel (card but its not a card!?) that is behind that and holds the loom.

The outer skin of the door is the bit outside the car that gets washed and polished by your local car wash. The exterior door handle will be attached to the outer skin.

The door card or door panel is the bit on the inside of the car that might be made of plastic or cloth or fake leather or some combination of those materials. It will have the interior door handle attached to it and some method (handle or switch) to make the window go up and down.  

To add to the confusion, modern cars also have an extra panel in the middle to hold the window regulator and speaker.  That is the one I'd call the door panel.

With the 'door card' being the interior finishing trim.  Plastic nowadays of course, but they were made of compressed cardboard before plastic took over.

Inner Panel

Outer Skin

Door Casing👍

That's Ford terminology (which we still use)

And I bet on the USA websites I've stumbled on it would all be different? 🤔

9 hours ago, fastrack1966 said:

And I bet on the USA websites I've stumbled on it would all be different?

Probably.

Keep away from the Australian sites, they have everything upside down 🤣

On 11/5/2025 at 7:44 AM, pcaouolte said:

What does this mean?

The drain holes will be on the bottom edge of the door where the metal outer skin of the door meets the metal bottom of the door.

Like this:

Thanks pls find attached pics of the underside of the door. I can see tiny holes in the rubber, are they meant to be drain holes? Maybe I should make them bigger or find where the water gets in. Still sloshing around every time there's rain.

4 minutes ago, fastrack1966 said:

I can see tiny holes in the rubber, are they meant to be drain holes?

They are air holes to let the air out of the seals when the door is closed and the rubber gets compressed.

These are supposed to be drain holes (magnified from your photos above):

They look blocked or possibly malformed at the factory. 

Thanks pcaouolte, they didn't used to be like that, I've had the car 5 years. However I had someone replace the window mech just as this started happening. Maybe he let some gunge in, I'll prod away with some tiny tools asap.

At last! After seeing the zoomed photo of my own car I found it. It was a bit gunged up by i don't know what but a bit of wiping with my finger and something that simple was solved, Drip Drip.