FIAT Panda (2003 - ) - 07 1.2 - Rain water in doors

Honest John Back Room » Technical matters
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Mon 7 Jan 2008 18:15
07 1.2 - Rain water in doors - k_clifford
Our Panda seems to have really poorly designed doors that let dirty water onto the inner part of the doorway. So when you open the door the sill and the outward facing part of the doorway are grubby. Also you open the door and water drips down off the rubber seal on the interior of the door, or worse, the seat. The side windows seem to mist up more than expected so maybe the windows don't seal properly either. Is this a problem with ours or are other Panda owners annoyed at this design fault?

Edited by Pugugly {P} on 07/01/2008 at 18:27

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Tue 8 Jan 2008 07:55
07 1.2 - Rain water in doors - doctorchris
I agree that the Panda's front doors do let the sills and the sloping part of the leading edge of the door get rather dirty. I haven't had a worse problem with water dripping down on opening the doors than with any other car without roof gutters. I think many Panda owners find the side windows mist up easily and I don't think it has anything to do with faulty seals. My own theory is that this particularly narrow car puts your body, which puts out a lot of water vapour in sweat and breathed air, in close proximity to the cold side window where it condenses.
However none of this annoys me, especially as I find the Panda such good value for money, so reliable and such fun to drive. I can easily forgive minor faults.
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Tue 8 Jan 2008 12:55
07 1.2 - Rain water in doors - paulb {P}
I acknowledge that this is not a lot of help when you've already bought the car, but in our experience of these cars the best method of avoiding the condensation problem is to specify air-con.

Since trading Mrs B's 54-reg 1.2 Dynamic (with no extras apart from electric mirrors) for an 06-reg 1.3 Multijet Dynamic with a/c pack the problem has disappeared entirely. The standard ventilation system is so-so; adding air-con improves it immensely. The climate control version found on Eleganza and 100HP models is better still.

OP may find that regular treatment of the insides of the windows with Fast Glass or something similar will alleviate the misting problem to a degree - we certainly found that it helped on our earlier non-a/c model.

Can't say that I've noticed the door sills getting any dirtier than on other cars we've had, nor any particular issue with rainwater dripping into the car. Only annoying thing about the doors imo is the way the back ones have of springing shut again if you don't pull them open to the first stop - can be annoying if you're in a tightish space and are carrying things or small people.
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