Water in drivers footwell - Found the leak!

[Degudodger]

I thought my wet feet days where behind me when i sold my Mk4 but apparently not.

This afternoon when i was trying to find my Gateway i found a substantial amount of water in the drivers footwell but only under the mat the top of which was dry. Where do i start in locating the possible cause, everything appears to be ok with no obvious signs of water ingress.

[gti265]

check your door seal isnt weathered/cracked or dented, ie, you havnt had a twig in it thats let water in. (i had that in a corsa i once owned)

tom

[ub7rm]

check your door seal isnt weathered/cracked or dented, ie, you havnt had a twig in it thats let water in. (i had that in a corsa i once owned)

tom

+1  for the door seal as first point of call.  Had this issue with the wife's polo which is the same 'design'.  And a poor one at that, its just a self adhesive strip of rubber that runs along the door.  Easy diy if it is though.

[Degudodger]

Ok, I'm confused.

It has rained a hell of a lot overnight and the footwell is as dry as it was yesterday. After spending the best part of two hours yesterday drying out the footwell with a Vax covered the carpet with kitchen towel to help identify where the water ingress was coming from and it is completely dry.

I can see this is going to annoy me. 

[Poppa Dom]

Just out of interest has the vehicle had a replacement windcsreen or is it running the original OEM screen?

[Degudodger]

Looks to be the original windscreen. 

[GTiBEER]

I had this in my TT I recently sold and never got to the bottom of it annoyingly! I put it down to the new windscreen and got autoglass back out to fit a new one, even after they did a leak check which came back negative, they grudgingly did and a few days later it was happening again and I gave up.

Watching Fithgear last week he was showing how  10 year old merc footwell would start collecting water due to leaves falling down the windscreen and collecting in the bulkhead and rotting but could be fixed with a good clean!

That would of made sense to my TT as I parked it under trees all the time and I now park my GTI in a similar position I am going to be very wary about it happening again.

Worth a try!

[micaerin]

check your door seal isnt weathered/cracked or dented, ie, you havnt had a twig in it thats let water in. (i had that in a corsa i once owned)

tom

+1  for the door seal as first point of call.  Had this issue with the wife's polo which is the same 'design'.  And a poor one at that, its just a self adhesive strip of rubber that runs along the door.  Easy diy if it is though.

Anybody got any pictures of the seal you mean, as i have the same problem

[gti265]

look round the door when its open there should be a spongy black rubber seal

[Degudodger]

I have checked both the door seal and it appears to be fine.

All seems to be well at the moment but i will keep an eye on it.

[animal]

Have you got a sunroof?

Check your pollen filter, is this damp?

Have you had any problems with the heaters? Could a be leaky heater matrix.

[Degudodger]

No sunroof,

I'm going to ask a really stupid question. Where is the pollen filter in the Mk5 - under the scuttle panel?

[ub7rm]

Its behind the glovebox, not the mk4 position.

[Eddie-NL]

the pollen filter is under a foam trim in the passenger footwell, if the drivers footwell is wet then you should remove the footwell trim (it is held in place with 3 torxs screws)there and see if the leak is coming through the bulkhead

[Degudodger]

Found it!!!

The bonnet release cable was replaced just before I bought the car and it would seem they didn't do a great job refitting the bulkhead grommet. Looks like i'm going to need to remove the scuttle panel and reseat the grommet or silicon seal it.