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Rear Door Seal Issue

4673 Views 1 Reply 1 Participant Last post by  ryanfullerton91
Hi everyone, I recently bought a great '00 Subaru Forester (the AWD works PERFECTLY in Minnesota winters!) and I love it, and the problem I have now is a really minor one, but annoying. The problem is that on the rear passenger doors, the sealant (for lack of a better word; the soft sort of tubing material attached to the door with small plastic green hooks) seems to have ripped off on the bottom of the door, meaning that when the door is opened, the sealant just hangs loose, and when the door is closed, the sealant hangs out.

It happened back in February, and I thought it was because the door froze and I had opened it and ripped the sealant off of the hooks without realizing it.

I have spent a lot of time researching this issue, but I can't seem to find it anywhere, and I haven't even been able to find what the actual term for the sealant is, unless it actually is "sealant."

I'm just wondering if it should all be replaced, or (hopefully) if there is an epoxy to adhesive strong enough to permanently bond the sealant to the metal of the door, and if there are any negatives to doing so.

Well, I hope that I wasn't too confusing in the description of the problem, and if any of you can help me in any way, I'll be very appreciative! Thanks in advance!
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Well, I found the issue on another site, and the consensus there seemed to be to use rubber cement or some other form of strong adhesive, and I had some Amazing GOOP Sport and Outdoor, so I glued the seal to the door and taped it to hold it in place temporarily.

I'll post the results when the glue dries just in case anyone has this problem in the future.

Edit: After around 3.5 hours, the glue seems to be holding very well, enough that I felt comfortable removing the tape I had used to hold the seal in place. I obviously won't know how well this works until next winter, but so far using the GOOP seems to be even more effective than the hooks it came with.
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