Another Wet Carpet thread (Sorry...)

[n3p 3]

Good afternoon all,

 

Firstly, it's nice to be back! After what seems like an eternity of working away I'm finally back to see the forum looking completely different (for the better so far). In the unlikely scenario that anyone was wondering what happened to me and my Corrado, it's still here and finally getting some TLC.

 

Back on topic (already used forum search btw). The car did previously have a leak through the scuttle blower area, which in turn killed my ABS ECU and relay. That's been fixed now using generous amounts of silicon, new gasket and an SWG smooth scuttle for good measure. Now, the rear passenger footwell always gets wet in the rain and for the life of me I can't find where the f k it's coming from. Here's a picture:

 

 

Things done/checked:

 

- Sat in the car for 15 minutes whilst it was being hosed. Nothing comes through at all!

- Took the passenger door card off, the membrane is all intact and everything feels dry/clean.

- Removed rear seats and doorcard, dry and clean

- Checked front sunroof drain channels, clear

- Checked the puddle, it's water not coolant

- Checked rear badges and lights, the boot is dry

 

I've yet to check the rear channels, would i have to remove the headlining or do the channels run down a pillar trim somewhere in the back? Looking at the picture it would appear that it's leaking from above, but the headlining is dry and unstained plus I'd probably notice water dripping down...

 

Anyone got any ideas or experiences as to where the water is getting in? I've just had to replace the entire alarm as it was false alarming... I'm hoping it wasn't due to water damage because that would mean my alarm would be next! Next weekend I'll be removing the carpet as there's probably a nasty mess lurking beneath!

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

[fla 9]

Is the car parked uphill? It looks like its leaked from the front and has run back and collected in the passenger footwell. Unless there's some ingress from underneath, which i hope not...

 

Can you remove the carpet and underlay? If so, that would give you an indication of where it is coming from.

[n3p 3]

Hi there, thanks for the reply. Sorry, I should have mentioned that the car is parked on a flat driveway. For good measure I have been alternating which way I park just in case any slight angle would affect it. I will be removing the carpet hopefully this weekend but was wondering if anyone had a similar problem. The front is dry, even when stomping on the carpet to try and get anything soaked up!

 

hear it's worth talcing the floor once the carpet is out so maybe that'll tell me what's happening. Carpet is due a clean anyway!

[fla 9]

yes i use talc to locate all sorts of car leaks eg oil - although it doenst always work! Cabin leaks should be easy though - shake liberally!

[davidwort 0]

Hi chap, good to see you back on here, I've had numerous leaks in my two and you seem to have most of it covered :scratch:

 

I got gallons in from the blower fan/scuttle cover problem, but you seem to have that sorted, definitely soaked the front first too.

Rear badge let loads in for me too, but that always soaked the sound deadening foam in the rear wheel well before much drained forward into the car.

My betting is still on the door membrane as they can be right bu99ers and seem to catch and channel the water extremely well! have you tipped water down the side of the passenger door glass, ideally a low pressure garden hose for a good 5-10 mins, filling the inside of the door! you should get water appearing on the inside of the membrane and you need to see this start to appear for a good while before you can be sure they are sealing properly.

 

Water should pour out from under the car front and rear if you carefully run water in the side channels of the open sunroof if the drains are working properly, I've not had this problem though but it would be good to do that to make sure the drains are clear and it drains out quickly where it should do.

 

talc idea sounds like a good one, often the drain-in points dry before you can trace where the water came from. whatever you do get that carpet sponged, raised and put fresh screwed up newspaper in there regularly to absorb the moisture, once the mould gets in there it will get foul.

[n3p 3]

Davidwort! Hope you've been keeping well - glad to hear you're 2 are still running!

 

The scuttle seal area doesn't seem to be letting in anything. Used a high pressure jet on it last week and nothing dripped onto the carpet like it used to, so I'm going to rule that one one. The foam that you mentioned in the rear well is completely dry so I'm assuming the badges and lights are water tight. I did change the rear lights to rule it out too.

 

I haven't tried to low pressure hose on the glass, would the membrane be sodden to touch if it was leaking though? Because I removed the door card previously and it was completely clean and dry (I don't think it had ever been removed before!). I will get the hose out again though sometime this week and see what happens.

 

I left work early today to remove the carpet as this leak was bugging me. The drivers side is completely dry, and as expected the passenger side is completely ruined!

 

 

At first I didn't think it looked too bad. That was until I lifted the padding! (bad camera phone pic, sorry) Another thing I forgot to take a picture of. If you look closely at the top right of the mouldy padding, you'll see a rubber grommet looking thing stuck to it. Anyone know where that's supposed to go? See a pic further down as to a possible location!

 

 

The front didn't look good either. There is mould which appears to be coming from the matrix area. I'm not sure if it has been changed at some point in the past, but I'm not losing any coolant and the leak is definitely water

 

Is this hole supposed to be plugged?

 

Here's an overall shot of the nastiness which lurks beneath:

 

Something I did seem to spot was that the raised hump which splits the front and rear had water along it parallel to the central tunnel. Over the next couple of weeks I will be taking the dashboard out (swapping for another one, god help me) so if it turns out the leak was from the front then I'll have a better view of it.

 

I have talced the whole floor (probably used a bit too much) so all I can do now is pray for the god of rain to unleash his fury! Any ideas anyone?

 

On a side note, what is wrong with VW? My friends mk2 golf leaked water, my brothers mk4 leaked water and the fecking corrado does too!

 

Nick

[OllieVR6 0]

My Clio leaks too (as did my Peugeot) so it's not just VW!

 

When my C leaked, water was coming in from 2 places in the end. Both from behind the door car (split membrane) and from the top corner of the windscreen (passenger side).

 

The windscreen was hard to diagnose because it came in, ran down the inside of the A pillar (under the cover) and then down from behind the glove box. Depending on how the car was parked, it would either get the front or rear wet (usually both).

[n3p 3]

My Clio leaks too (as did my Peugeot) so it's not just VW!

 

When my C leaked, water was coming in from 2 places in the end. Both from behind the door car (split membrane) and from the top corner of the windscreen (passenger side).

 

The windscreen was hard to diagnose because it came in, ran down the inside of the A pillar (under the cover) and then down from behind the glove box. Depending on how the car was parked, it would either get the front or rear wet (usually both).

 

Thanks for replying - The windscreen one sounds interesting, I'll remove the A pillar when I can and see if that's the culprit. All promising ideas so far, hopefully I'll trace it eventually!

 

Now I'm wondering if it's safe to stick the carpet in a big washing machine at the laundromat :)

[OllieVR6 0]

Some more advice - I washed mine with the jet wash after it was wet like yours over winter. It took 5 days to dry being outside 24 hours a day in the heat of summer!

 

---------- Post added at 4:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 4:48 PM ----------

 

Here is the page detailing my windscreen problem:

 

http://the-corrado.net/showthread.php?43012-Ollies-VR6/page4

[n3p 3]

No chance of it drying for a while then! Thanks for the link - the pictures of the doorcard are helpful and the company you mention (old school windscreens) could be worth calling if it turns out my windscreen is buggered. It was actually changed a couple of years back but the car leaked before and after anyway so I haven't really thought much of it!

[fla 9]

yes pop it in the machine, use some Vanish on problem stains(eg coolant marks, grease), perhaps use some soda crystals if its excessively soiled and it will come out like new.

The foam will definitely take a while to dry out - squeeze out as much as you can and then try and leave it in the sun (if we have any :() inside. Give it a good few days.

[Langsam 10]

Ive noticed that my driverside footwell is wet, at first I thought it was the dreaded heater matrix because all of my windows are completely steamed up and no matter how much I use the heaters or the windows down I cant seem to shift it!

Edited September 27, 2012 by Langsam

[davidwort 0]

that's a lot of water, but good call on the windscreen, poor fitment and rusting frames can both let in a substantial amount of water, just think yourself lucky you don't have an audi, my dad's A6 has the abs ECU in a recess under the passenger floor, it acts as a sump if any water gets in!

Best of luck tracing the flow, which shouldn't be much trouble in the current weather!

[Human Joist 10]

No one answered the hole you mentioned in the passenger footwell. That could well cause the problem. Do you get water ingress when driving in the rain or when its sat in the wet. I have seen more water in a car from the same sort of size hole. It's a pain but a good idea would be to leave the carpet out of the car and all but the drivers seat and then use it in the wet. You may see where the water comes in from. Try talcing the base and the sides of the car without carpet at least you will see where gets we first if its a running down leak.

 

Also check the drain holes from the sunroof, if you have one. There are two channels, one each side. They run to the back of the car and the pipe sticks out behind the bumper. You could let water run down them and it should drip from behind the rear bumper. But plug that hole as it should not be there.

 

Also two other places to check are under the car I case you have lost a grommet from there and inside the rear arches to ensure you have not rot holes lurking in there that allow water in when driving in the rain.

[n3p 3]

Thanks for your input - I will find something strong to plug that hole up in that case. The car has been sat for the past couple of days (in the rain) and it has soaked again. I've never noticed any ingress while driving but it'll be worth doing a stripped down road test once I collect my seats. The front sunroof channels are clear, the rears seem to be escaping fast enough too, but I think I may be closer to finding where the leak is coming from.

 

Here's the passenger rear, as you can see the water has pooled in the areas highlighted. It appears to be running along the blue marks parallel to the centre tunnel as previously thought:

 

In my haste a couple of days ago I forgot to remove some more padding on the front side as you can see (already removed 2 sheets, there was more under it!) so apologies for that. Also excuse the snapped plastic ABS ECU cover remains...that's going to be fun finding a beige replacement for that!

 

Anyway, the purple area is completely rotten, this could be from the previous scuttle area leak (more padding to remove!), The yellow area is rotten, but strangely enough the orange area is dry, although the padding below is wet too.

 

I think the best thing to do when I get more time is to remove the padding (sound proofing?) I overlooked and start pulling the dashboard out. It's going to be changed anyway but I think I have enough evidence to rule out the door membranes, rear lights and badges. Will also remove the pillar trim as suggested before. Will update the thread once I've made progress, but I'm really not looking forward to doing this job! Clearing up the talc alone is gonna be crap!

 

Anyone know if the floor padding stuff is still available from VW? If not can I just get some from another VW and cut to suit. I guess Dynamat wouldn't be a good enough replacement?

 

Nick

[fla 9]

remove the felt and replace this with closed cell foam of a similar thickness. Keep the heavy black top layer - thats your noise barrier.

[n3p 3]

Hi Hasan,

 

Not sure if this is anything like you suggested, but I ordered a roll of this stuff a couple of hours ago:

 

http://www.as-trim.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=8_48

 

Hopefully it'll do the job! And stay dry this time :)

 

Nick

[Summz 10]

I've also had a problem with water in the footwells, every footwell apart from the drivers side. it only happens when i drive in the rain though, which seems like its being flicked up from the bottom of the car while in motion. havent had the time to take a look yet as i work away and use a works vehicle. found some comments on this thread usefull though and might have to try and tackle it this w.e.

 

ill post up some pics and that if usefull to anyone.

cheers all

[Human Joist 10]

I know it sounds doom and gloom, but bet its only a small rubber bung or blocked sun roof channel that's causing it. Don't let it put you off to much. Persevere and I am sure you will find the issue.

[Langsam 10]

How do you unblock possible sun roof channels? I seem to get a small leak from inside the A pillar.

[dragon green 5]

How do you unblock possible sun roof channels? I seem to get a small leak from inside the A pillar.

 

The front drains are visible when the sunroof is open,they are in the front corners ! You need something like a bike brake cable,and rod the hole

The rears are a little more difficult to find,I do mine by taking the rear bumper off (that's where the tubes exit) and ridding from the rear forwards

[Human Joist 10]

Just be gentle on sunroof and try and put some hot water down it as well. Be very careful as you don't want another hole 😜 lol

[dragon green 5]

One of my rears was so blocked,I had to take the roof lining out,gently warm the plastic pipe,and clean it out with a bottle brush !

[Summz 10]

i just managed to take my carpet and all that out never seen so much water in my life :scratch: completly shreaded the foamy underlay stuff. had to wash everything out with warm water because there was a touch of mold here and there!!!

 

is there anywhere you can buy new, different colored carpets as i think mine have gone past the washing stage. or would it be easier to dye the colour i want?

[OllieVR6 0]

What colour do you want? I have a spare black carpet in pretty good condition.