Took my car back to the body shop over that trunk leak and they made it right

Same kind of thing happened to me after a side hit on my wife's Highlander two years back. The door looked fine from outside but there was a whistle at highway speed and the driver footwell carpet stayed damp. Shop said it was normal settle-in, so I sat inside with a flashlight while my son ran a garden hose along the door line and found the vapor barrier behind the door card had been sliced during the repair and never taped back down.

What got them moving was video. I filmed the water running in, clipped it to about 30 seconds and sent it over with the repair order number. Once the service manager saw actual water dripping onto the carpet they booked it in without arguing. Turned out the tech had also pinched the wiring for the door check strap when he refit the card, which explained a window that only worked some days.

One thing I'd add to the being-specific advice: put it in writing. I typed up a short list of every issue with dates I first noticed them and handed it over, asked them to attach it to the repair order. When everything got fixed under the same claim there was no back and forth about what was in scope. Car's been fine since, though I still run a hose around the doors after any big repair just out of habit.

Mine went the other direction with the shop, so I learned to document before I ever pick the car up. After a front-end repair on my Impala a few winters ago the cowl area started letting water in on the passenger side. First visit they wiped it down, said give it a week. Second visit they blamed a cracked windshield I never had replaced. Third time I brought photos with dates and a marked-up diagram of where the water was running, plus a video I shot during a storm. That finally got the service manager to pull the cowl cover, and sure enough the sealant bead under it had been cut during the repair and never redone. Insurance ended up covering the redo because the original claim was still open, which I didn't know was an option until the adjuster told me. So if a shop stonewalls you, don't burn three visits like I did. Call your adjuster early, because a repair that causes a new leak is their problem to fix, not yours to argue about. Also, put a few paper towels under the carpet edge before any rain and check them after. Sounds dumb but it turned my word against theirs into a measurable thing they couldn't wave off.

One thing I'd flag in your fix is the surface rust treatment, because scuff pad plus seam sealer over active rust only buys you time unless every last trace got cleaned off. I had a quarter panel seam done that way on my old wagon after a deer hit, and within a year the sealer was bubbling from the inside out where the rust had kept eating under it. I'd keep an eye on that corner in six months and again before winter, since moisture cycling is what pushes it along. Also worth pulling that trim panel once more to check the channel itself for trapped grit, which is ussually what kept the weatherstrip from seating in the first place.