00 Bora (rain) Water leak...

leonlafrite

Hello all,

a few month ago I realised that the front and rear passenger floor / carpets are full of water..., clean water...

I have been investigating since and I have not been able to find where it is coming from...

I have checked the following and all is fine:

4 sunroof water pipe - clean
had the underneath of the car check for damages - nothing
windscreen - perfect fiting
pollen filter - dry
check behind glove box - dry as it can be
clean the inside of the front whell passage - removed mud ...expected anyway
I had the passenger door / window seal done again as some (very minimal) moisture was present...

What I know is that the water does not come in via underneath and Interstingly it seem to take in most water when left outside standing under the rain.
last week, I had the carpet and under garnish fully dried up and now I am 100 % sure that it is not coming from the underneath as the tick garnish bottom unter the carpet is dry, the only wet part is teh top of that same garnish, not even the carpet top itself...

Help, this is driving me mad !!!
I have seen numerous similar thread on the web but cannot seem to fixe my issue...

Vain

Put it up on vagdrivers.net Im sure they will know.

denat

Does leak occur if it's parked on level ground? A friend had a VW Golf a few years ago and it only leaked when parked in her steeply sloping driveway. She had to park either facing up or down the slope.

VW dealer told her it was a fault with Golfs and was related to the internel drainage guttering of the car. Said the only solution was to park on fairly level ground. He could have been trying to fob her off, of course.

anon11

feel around the bottom of the door card and see is it wet

leonlafrite

well I look at http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44216
and check both doors and replaced one seal , I have to say this is a big area of suspicion for me... but I remove teh door panel for the rear door too and it is all dry ... I am thinking about the middle pillar as being a possible area (somehow) where the water is coming in from ...

Thanks Denat but teh car is leveled when parked .

crosstownk

Check that the plenum chamber drains are not blocked. This is the chamber where the wipe motor and pollen filter are housed. They often get clogged up with leaves and the like.

(CH3)2CHOH

I've seen something similar on a few cars.

Its always been the plastic sheet between the door card and the door. It can be torn or missing (if the door has been worked on).

aujopimur

Incontinent passengers?

leonlafrite

crosstownk
the plenum chamber drains , interesting, but how do I check this / where is this located ?

(CH3)2CHOH
I am unsure where that platic should be, I took the door garnish off and there was a large metal plate housing the window and everything else .. that plastic, shoul be there or inside (between the door itself and the mechanicsm)

aujopimur
Incontinent passengers, I wish at least I woudl know what to do ;-)

Darren_C

Have a 00 Passat and went through a very similar situation.

The plenum chamber drain is a pain to get at if it is in the same place as on the passat (it's in the same place in an audi A4 and VW golf).

Where the battery, the wiper motor and pollen filter sit is a tray behind the engine compartment. At the bottom of the tray there is a drain hole which is directly under the shelf for the battery. In my case this would get clogged with leaves because there is a little rubber sleeve on the drain hole. Once that happened the water would fill the tray (sometimes to a few inches deep). Once the water is deep enough it runs off into the passenger side of the cabin.

The tell tale sign for this situation is the water in the tray, it can be difficult to see it with all the part blocking your way but if you put a finger down beside the battery and feel water, that sound like my problem. To drain the water, the easiest thing is to remove the battery, locate the drain hole under the battery shelf (it's not visible, best to stick a finger under there) and free the drain hole. In my case it happened a couple of times so I got a mechanic to remove the rubber sleeve from the drain and it hasn't happened since. If you search on some of the VW forums this issue arises a lot - note that Americans will talk about wet driver side footwells because of driving on the right.

I'd advise you to get on this ASAP - in my case there was enough water to flood the control chip under the passenger seat carpet and stop it working. This meant my electric windows and internal lights all stopped working and the central locking went a bit funny. It cost me a few hundred to get a replacement and get it all wired up.

Hope you get sorted
D

ShayK1

+1

I was gonna say the same as the above poster. Happened to a mate of mine, also a 00 passat. Apparently its very common.

I think he ended up drilling a bigger drain hole under the battery.

Hope you find it.

Topper Harley

I had the same problem in my old Seat Toledo. I used to boast about having my own 20 inch swimming pool in my car. It was in the rear right footwell and when the water built up a bit, it would make really loud swooshing sounds as I went around corners.

Anyways, once I'd replaced the sealant on all the doors, the leaks stopped. I wasn't sure at first that it would do the trick as I'd read about it being a problem with the pollen filter but I never had the same problem again. The sealant cost about €50 from the Seat dealer and covered all four doors.

Best of luck it.

anon11

reseal window regulators:)

(CH3)2CHOH

leonlafrite wrote: »

crosstownk
the plenum chamber drains , interesting, but how do I check this / where is this located ?

(CH3)2CHOH
I am unsure where that platic should be, I took the door garnish off and there was a large metal plate housing the window and everything else .. that plastic, shoul be there or inside (between the door itself and the mechanicsm)

aujopimur
Incontinent passengers, I wish at least I woudl know what to do ;-)

It could be different on a VW. The plastic sheet would normally be between the mechanism's inside the door and the door card. It acts as a seal so that any water that does get into the door goes out through the door drain hole.

crosstownk

Darren_C wrote: »

Have a 00 Passat and went through a very similar situation.

The plenum chamber drain is a pain to get at if it is in the same place as on the passat (it's in the same place in an audi A4 and VW golf).

Where the battery, the wiper motor and pollen filter sit is a tray behind the engine compartment.

Just to avoid confusion, the battery in a Bora is not located in the plenum chamber as is the case in a Passat. The plenum chamber is directly on the other side of the dashboard in the engine bay. Open the bonnet and look to the rear of the engine bay. You'll see a rubber seal that runs across the engine bay just behind the strut mounts. Lift up this seal and then remove the plastic covering. Below this cover is the wiper motor and wiper mechanism, ECU, pollen filter and, with a bit of luck, your problem.