I seem to have a leak in the polo bought two Saturdays ago (not too happy the last owner forgot to mention it but hey!).

I got into the car this morning, pulled away and had water drip into my shoes, stoppped the car and felt around by the pedals and sure enough its leaking down there. I think its where the holes for the pedals are as when i got back in it after work (and after a days rainfall) there were droplets of water under the pedals (mainly the clutch and brake area) on the carpet.

I checked under the bonnet but its bone dry under there! It's baffling me where the water could be coming from.

This is concerning me as i don't want rust and i don't want it to smell like a damp cat in there!

Anyone got any ideas? Help much appreciated!

Hey there,

What car do yo have? The older ones are prone to the battery trays rusting through due to a shocking design by VW back in the day.

Have you tried taking the little glovebox thing out to have a look? This weather is ideal for finding leaks, get out there

-Rich

Pretty Sure they got a Mk4!

Look at there details!

i sometimes get wet ankles on long jorneys but it normally is my own piss

hehe

Yeah its a 1.4 CL N reg i think its a MK4.

I will have a look this weekend for leaks and rusting.

Thanks for the advise guys! :)

most liely the battery tray but could also be windscreen seal so have a look at that too.

Check if it had a new window screen lately they might not of sealed it properly

I'm fairly sure u have a windscreen leak, my windscreen at a problem at the seal at the passenger end and was leaking into the passanger part of the car. Best plan for seeing if it is or not is to get someone with a watering can or something and ask them to pour it onto the windsceen with u on it. Different areas etc, once u find the part that needs reglueing get some masking tape so u dont get wet feet anymore then take it to somewhere like Autoglass where they charge u around about £90 ish to reglue. ..... which if your a poor uni student like me is a bit of a stab lol.

Hmm, well after having a look down there yesterday I'm not so sure it is the windscreen as when i put my hand down by the clutch i could see daylight shining onto the back of my hand! Ok, i dont know a lot about cars but i don't think that's supposed to occur??

I'm gonna have to give it a thorough going over on saturday i think.

Edited 3 October, 200718 yr by Heyli

heater matrix? is the car losing coolant?

you can see daylight near the pedal box? thats not a good sign at all

might jus have knocked out a grommet or something so have a closer look

Well thanks for the advice guys at least i have an idea of what to look for on the weekend!

Sorry for sticking this post in the wrong place too :) will let you know how i get on.

I'm fairly sure u have a windscreen leak, my windscreen at a problem at the seal at the passenger end and was leaking into the passanger part of the car. Best plan for seeing if it is or not is to get someone with a watering can or something and ask them to pour it onto the windsceen with u on it. Different areas etc, once u find the part that needs reglueing get some masking tape so u dont get wet feet anymore then take it to somewhere like Autoglass where they charge u around about £90 ish to reglue. ..... which if your a poor uni student like me is a bit of a stab lol.

£90 for reglue? Wouldn't it be cheaper to have the screen replaced on insurance? They're usually around £50 excess fully comp.

I'm fairly sure u have a windscreen leak, my windscreen at a problem at the seal at the passenger end and was leaking into the passanger part of the car. Best plan for seeing if it is or not is to get someone with a watering can or something and ask them to pour it onto the windsceen with u on it. Different areas etc, once u find the part that needs reglueing get some masking tape so u dont get wet feet anymore then take it to somewhere like Autoglass where they charge u around about £90 ish to reglue. ..... which if your a poor uni student like me is a bit of a stab lol.

£90 for reglue? Wouldn't it be cheaper to have the screen replaced on insurance? They're usually around £50 excess fully comp.

I imagine so but at the time I was a newish driver and just built up my no claims to a year. Plus the water was dripping onto a alarm sensor and setting it off at like 4 in the morning. So to save time and sleep I just paid whatever it was at Autoglass but if i needed a new windscreen I would of done it the insurance way, wouldnt of had a chioce lol.

It only took me a day to get a new screen sorted for my old car. Doesn't affect your no claims for screens

fair does, well I reglued and didnt know that, either way I wont cry about it too much. Long as its dry lol.

Hope u get you are prob sorted Heyli.

Cheers Dan

Thanks matey

think Diamond (my insurance comp) said its £70 excess for windscreen if the whole window needs replacing as i have a gurt chip in it so i enquired about it recently!

Had a look on saturday, poured water all over the windscreen, all down by the wipers basically and in every crevice I thought the rain would run down....would it leak....no...making me look like a liar/over exaggerating female to my boyfriend. I even checked on it later to see if it had just taken a while to drip through...bone dry!

It's definately not the battery tray that looked nice and clean and rust-less.

Corse we've had very heavy rain today and when i got back into the car after being at work i found droplets of water under the clutch pedals and on the mat further back it was saturated! It was also very wet UNDER the mat as well as on top. Could it be coming from underneath??? I took photographic evidence so i dont get accused of exaggerating....

...it's not a brilliant photo as it was on my phone but it shows the water placement.

As you can see the droplets are under the clutch and brake. I felt behind the control panel thing and it felt wet but being a woman i don't know my way round a car very well and couldn't tell you what the hell i was feeling i just know it was directly up from behind the steering wheel as far as i could reach and when i pulled my hand out my fingers were wet and yellow!

This is what the mat looked like as well, random scatterings of water absorbing. Light droplets under the pedals and down the side bit and a heavy soaking towards the right of the mat.

Also when i drove sharply round a corner i heard ALOT of water rush from one side of the car to the other

I think I'm gonna have to just give in and take it to a garage but I've got a horrible feeling its gonna be an expensive job! It's really not fair as I have only just bought the car and I knew nothing of a leak as it was dry when we looked over/test drove it/bought it.

Can anyone help???

try putting a lead light/lamp in the footwell and see if you can spot any light from the engine bay and visa versa.

you might be able to see where the hole is.

worth a try before you go to a garage

Hi Heyli,

Here's a potential and simple solution. This exact same thing happened to one our polos including the sloshing around! Retrospectively, it makes me laugh. Anyway, the problem was an accumulation of dead leaves and stuff blocking the drainage channels in the scuttle. So when it rained, the water accumulated like a fish tank - hence the sloshing - and the seepage into the footwells.

Enough of that, pop the lid, take the scuttle cover off (rigid black plastic guard at base of wipers) and probe the lateral crevices - especially down the lateral side of the pollen air filter box. A long flexible bottle brush, some hot water and probing revealed a large collection of leaf litter which plopped down infront of the wheel arch. Gave both sides a good scrub and tested by pouring water to ensure free and clear drainage. Problem solved.

There are a couple of other sites along door drainage channels that this can happen... someone did write this up!

Good luck and let me know how you get on!

Kind regards,

PoloD.

(nice artwork!)

Edited 9 October, 200718 yr by PoloD