The last couple of weeks at home have marked the return of something we've been lacking for a while in Maryland - rain. It's great that we are finally getting some. We sure do need it.

Unfortunately, this has triggered an issue in our 2006 Ford Freestyle - rain leaking into the passenger compartment. We've had this intermittent problem of water mysteriously showing up on the front dashboard of the car occasionally, but in this case, we soaked a good chunk of the rear cargo area, with the water coming out where the seat belts for the 3rd row come out of the headliner in the ceiling on the driver side.

This was frustrating beyond average since the theme of this particular car has been "water leaks". Previously, we had water soaking the floor of the second row seats on the passenger side due to a badly aligned gasket in the firewall that allowed water from the A/C unit to leak in (taking it in for a water leak in the middle of the summer with no rain was fun). Then another plug worked its way loose and we leaked again several months later into the same spot.

I took it in last week, where our local Ford dealer performed a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) for the water leak which sounded like what we had been describing. Seems like there are some problems with the way the drain hoses for the sunroof were positioned. Anyway, fix performed, got the car back and things seemed good. Until earlier this week when it rained again. Good news - it didn't leak out the driver side. Bad news - it leaked out the passenger side.

Grrrr.....

Called the dealer again. Referenced the first call and they promptly (without any arm twisting) set me up with a loaner car and an appointment the next day. Returned fixed and tested - we'll see what happens.

It's odd how cards seem to develop themes for annoyances. My wife once had a car that seemed to be some sort of stealth car - because people kept rear ending it for some reason. Another car had a habit of hitting odd objects (like parking lot posts, dogs in the road, etc.). My wife's current car has had the record for "things that should never break, but have" like 12V outlets falling to the floor, CD player that refuses to play track 1, etc. It really does make you wonder that as cars become more complicated, they seem to be getting a lot harder to build correctly.