Mk1 Tintop (non sunroof) water in footwells following respray.

Morning Guys,

Hoping someone can shed some light on a water leak issue I'm having with my mk1 GTi tintop (no sunroof).

Took it in to get some body work seen to (sills, bottom of the doors, rear valance and the lower column at the sides of of the windscreen).

Since I got it back it's been filling with water, and has had up to 1/2 an inch in BOTH footwells. I've had to chuck out the underlay/sound deadening but have sourced some more.

I've read that there can be a number of reasons for this. I have checked the vapour barriers in the doors and they appear to be leaking slightly, and there is also a lot of leaves / gunk under the bonnet in the area where the wipers are. Not sure if this is another possible source. I will see to these myself and see if this improves things.

However, I'm worried that the repair the garage have made to the areas to the left and right of the windscreen have interfered with a drain or the windscreen seal. This would be fairly disastrous as I'm not sure how you would rectify this if they've filled or welded more material in there than there should be!

Anyone else experienced this issue and got any more advice?

Cheers

Pete

1. OH, worth adding that the car filled with water when stationary i.e. can't be caused by tyres flicking water up into unusual areas as I have seen described elsewhere.

Can you peel back windscreen rubber to see if there is any holes there.

You could dry out the foot wells then put paper towels in there, then get a hosepipe to replicate rain. Then you can see on the towels which direction the water is coming in.

This might be a stupid idea? I don't know.

Hi mate 
It's more than Likely coming in from under bonnet dripping onto cables or bonnet pull and going straight in the footwell had this before on one hope this helps and solves your mystery cheers Phil

Hi mate had the same problem recently and found where it was getting in, under the bonnet on the scuttle tray there are two drainage holes where the water drains away but if you look at the suspension under the hole either side follow it down and on mine someone had tapped up and painted two holes but like factory cut holes and it was running Into the footwell, this might be hard to understand but if you get a jug of water and pour it through the drainage holes and watch where the water goes to and you'll see what I mean, check there anyway and see if you have grommets there, also where did you get new sound proofing from? 

AliBlabe, the soundproofing was from VW Heritage, around £40 delivered. Covers the front and rear footwells but not the bulkhead.

An update on the leak….

Cleared the scuttle tray out and got my garage to blast some air down the drains to make sure they were clear. I do not think that this was the problem, but didn't think it could do any harm.

I laid newspaper in the car and sprayed it with water to find out where the leak was coming from. Seems it was through the doors. I removed the door cards and found that the vapour barrier was in poor condition and not fitted correctly (there's a little flap that should be fitted to drain back into the door).

I repaired the vapour barrier with clear duck tape, all round the edges and across any tears. I then used double sided carpet tape and fixed this to the door around all the seals (using the 50mm wide stuff and cutting it in two lengthways. Stuck the vapour barriers back on and then used more duck tape to seal over the top (overkill, but reassuring).

Heavy rain today and no leaks so far.

The amount of water leaking in through the door seemed insignificant at the time, but something dripping every few seconds can build up quickly in a car over a day of heavy rain. Just leave a tap dripping for a day over a basin and you will find the basin full much quicker than you think. Also, nowhere for th water to evaporate to in a car!

Hope this helps.

Pete

peterpolo said

Morning Guys,

Hoping someone can shed some light on a water leak issue I'm having with my mk1 GTi tintop (no sunroof).

Took it in to get some body work seen to (sills, bottom of the doors, rear valance and the lower column at the sides of of the windscreen).

Since I got it back it's been filling with water, and has had up to 1/2 an inch in BOTH footwells. I've had to chuck out the underlay/sound deadening but have sourced some more.

I've read that there can be a number of reasons for this. I have checked the vapour barriers in the doors and they appear to be leaking slightly, and there is also a lot of leaves / gunk under the bonnet in the area where the wipers are. Not sure if this is another possible source. I will see to these myself and see if this improves things.

However, I'm worried that the repair the garage have made to the areas to the left and right of the windscreen have interfered with a drain or the windscreen seal. This would be fairly disastrous as I'm not sure how you would rectify this if they've filled or welded more material in there than there should be!

Anyone else experienced this issue and got any more advice?

Cheers

Pete

I had exactly the same problem, caused by the rubber bung things in scuttle panel under bonnet being totally blocked. Water pooled up and came in through heater. Took bungs out, cleaned and scrubbed scuttle. Now all good. Luckily i caught it early so managed to dry out carpet and foam before it got mouldy.