I dont know much in detail about the construction of the front of cars, so I'm a bit stuck.
Whenever I jetwash my Toledo, I usually deliberately try and make it leak to see if I can spot where it is coming from.
But, it never lets a drop in. Only the rain seems to do it. I have poured full buckets of water down the front vents, the screen, jetwashed right up against the edge of the windscreen, etc, but the car stays dry.
It seems to come in through the passenger footwell vents but I could be wrong. I have siliconed the chassis and replaced the pollen filter housing but I am now totally and utterly stumped.
It seems to be more leak prone when facing up hill.
SEAT and VW specialists would want £400 just to take the dash out.
It doesn't have a sunroof. At one point I thought it was just the A/C drain pipe that was clogged but now I don't know.
Help!
|
|
Have you narrowed it down to one side of the car, the passenger or dirver's footwell area? Sometimes you get water collecting around the door seals at the bottom corner of the door, especially when parked on an incline facing up or down hill. I used to have a Fiesta that when raining water would gather and creep between the doorseal and bottom front corner of the door near the driver's feet and spill into the carpet. You seem to have eliminated the bulkhead and pollen filter areas. Water can get in at the windscreen corners and trickle down the metal behind the dashboard which is hard to spot. Otherwise I would suspect the door seals or else the plastic sheet behind the door card panels that may be torn.
|
Faulty seals behind the door cards will leak into the cabin depending on the camber of the road when parked.
Rain runs down the glass, goes inside the door, drips off the glass onto the plastic membrane that seals the interior (fitted behind the door cards), runs down the membrane to where the seal has broken away, runs down behind the door card and soaks the carpet.
If you were to park in the facing the same direction in the street but on the opposite side of the road the water drips off the glass onto the inside of the door skin and through the drainage holes in the bottom of the door (its worth checking that these drainage holes are clear).
|
Thanks guys - I have the door sealing kit from SEAT, just need to get my 'arris into gear and do it.
It really does seem to be coming from the footwell vents - parked facing uphill it was damp right up on the right hand side of the passenger footwell. (The drivers side always stays dry)
|
I had this problem last year with my 51 plate Bora. Lost track of the number of times I removed the wipers and cowling and poured water over the thing.
The problem was that so much water had gotten in, that it had saturated some of the foam liners in the air intakes (Recirculating) and so it was difficult to tell whether water was getting in, as everything was so wet.
It turned out that the seal at the bottom of the Windscreen had failed and water was running down the side and entering through the seal. Push some paper between the dashboard and the bottom of the screen in the corners. Pull it out and see if it is wet.
2 options. Buy some Windscreen sealant from Halfords and have a go, or have the screen replaced. I did the first option, which seemed to do the trick, but then the screen cracked and I paid £50 excess for a full replacement.
No problems since then. and we've had some heavy weather.
Hope this helps. Read this thread on my problems if this helps further
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=37...0
Regards
Charles
-------------------
VW Bora (51) 2.0 SE
VW Touran (54) 1.9 TDI
|
Thanks Charles! I will just book it in and get it done professionally I think.
Then comes the fun part of taking the carpets out (Or lifting them at least) to dry it out. Hope the floor isn't rusted...
|
I think it's worthwhile to check to see if it is the windscreen first, you could probably repair for <£10 with some Loctite WIndscreen sealant. £400 to pull out the dash is expensive, and you'd be without your car for a day (plus there's no guarantee that they won't break something behind the dash and you'll have a rattle to contend with afterwards).
I found a Dehumidifier was really good at removing the moisture. Bucketfuls came out and the car doesn't smell, but I guess that may depend on how much water you've had in the car, my carpets were wet, but not saturated.
Charles
-------------------
VW Bora (51) 2.0 SE
VW Touran (54) 1.9 TDI
|
The carpets got drenched back in October so it's probably still quite damp!
Did you hire or buy a dehumidifier and how much are they?
Thanks again.
|
I bought an Aircon unit from B&Q for around £120 which had a Dehumidifier option, so it's had 2 uses!
-------------------
VW Bora (51) 2.0 SE
VW Touran (54) 1.9 TDI
|
Hmm...I will have to see if the local hire place does these then!
Cheers for that Charles. I was considering having the windscreen looked at but I just couldn't see it being anything other than a leak in the ventilation system.
|
Sorry to bump to the top again - Charles - did the windscreen place test your screen before hand and give you a definite answer?
I took mine to a local place who were very helpful (Old School Windscreens in Chobham) and did as much testing as they could but couldn't find anything obvious. It's £200 for a new screen so I'd like to be 100% sure it's money well spent!
|
Sorry, I've been busy and haven't been here for a few days.
OK. Don't spend £200 on my account. I only replaced the windscreen because it cracked.
Here was my entire thoughts on the water ingress problem. I too threw bucket loads of water over the car, but didn't get very far.
Carpets (Passenger side) were wet. so I replaced the pollen filter on the advice of a couple of websites and a VW dealer, but it didn't work
So, I investigated further. Bear in mind where the Pollen filter housing is in relation to where the water comes in from.
open the Passenger door and starting in the footwell below the dashboard, see how far you can push your hand up between the side of the car - I separated the join between the carpet and the fabric cover over the body panel - difficult to describe, but essentially, I could feel water on the inside of the car's body panel at quite a high point.
I determined that the water was coming in Much much higher than the air inlet area. That's what led me to the windscreen. If you have a sunroof, then this is a possible entry point as the drain hoses get blocked (I didn't have a sunroof). the only other option was a weld in the bulkhead separating the engine compartment from the inside of the car, but I very carefully poured water down there and found none entering at this point.
So, the next step. Take some thin but fairly sturdy paper (A4 sheet) and push it into the bottom corner of the windscreen on the passenger side. Try to push it between the dashboard and the windscreen as far as possible, pull out and check to see if it is wet. If wet, then you've got a leak, If it goes through to the outside, then you've definitely got a leak!!!
Also, because it was winter, one morning I had frost on the inside of the windscreen in that area. That suggests water ingress also.
I used some Windscreen sealant from Halfords - cost me around £10 I think. It was NOT easy to apply, and it might be worth buying some flexible silicon pipe to stick on the nozzle to get it into the difficult areas. Be prepared for a mess - it is thick black sticky stuff which goes everywhere. Also make sure everything is dry. I put a bead of the stuff over the entire passenger corner of the windscreen from the bottom to around halfway up.
Fortunately for me, I got a cracked windscreen. a stone chip started to crack due to the frost (might have helped that I was putting pressure on it when I cleaned the windscreen on the inside), so I replaced with a £50 excess.
Hope this helps. Don't replace the windscreen if you can avoid it as it is too expensive
Charles
-------------------
VW Bora (51) 2.0 SE
VW Touran (54) 1.9 TDI
|
|
Check all over the windscreen, you may have lots of small chips anyway, and in my experience they will replace it for the excess of around £50. At leat that will narrow it down and if you do have lots of sprinled sugar-like chips it will be worth the £50 to get new clear glass.
|
£55,999was £57,999Details
£55,900was £59,900Details
£46,500was £46,750Details
£18,065was £18,533Details
