My car, a seat leon, is getting soaking wet in the rear off side foot well when it rains. I’ve not seen water come in, it’s more when I get in it in the morning after a wet night the footwell is sodden.
Possible stupid question - is there any way rainwater could come in other than through a leaking door? I’ve not had the floor up to see what’s underneath - could there be some other mode of entry for water?
Reason I ask is that I had the door lining renewed recently and it seems in great shape. There’s no water anywhere else and no signs of channelling of water leaking in, it’s just this one footwell that’s getting really wet.
An important question…If it rains and you are NOT driving your car, does water still get in? If not it’s more likely (but far from a given thing) that water is being sprayed up from the wheel and coming in from underneath as opposed to leaking past a faulty door seal. I would start by looking under the car for any signs of damage.
A friend of mine had a car that would get soaking wet, to the point of puddles on the floor if she drove it in the rain. However, no matter how hard it rained, if she didn’t drive the car it stayed dry. Turned out the rear shock broke loose and punched through the body of the car under her rear seat. Each time she drove her rear tire sprayed water under the seat.
It’s definitely getting wet just sitting there overnight - I had a quick look underneath a while back and it seemed OK. I wouldn’t necessarily know what I was looking for, but there were no obvious holes or anything like that.
Do you have a sunroof? Volkswagen, Seat’s parent company, has had problems in the past with the sunroof drains clogging and dumping water into the cabin. If you do have a sunroof, open the door on the side with the water and look for a short black rubber tube on the door frame (on the body of the car near the door’s hinges).
If you squeeze it and water comes out, it’s clogged. You can get all of the water out by squeezing the rubber tube, but you’ll need to keep doing it periodically after heavy rains to make sure it doesn’t re-clog. You can also have the drains cleaned when you take your car in for regular service.
It’s pretty hard to tell unless you get a water hose, tape it to the roof, turn it on so water sheets down the car and get inside and start looking and feeling around for where it could be coming in. You may have to take parts of the interior off and move the hose so it hits different sections of the car.
I had a really strange leak in my Civic. Water was coming in from the roof somewhere (the headliner would be wet), but ONLY if the car was standing still. It never happened while I was driving. In fact, if I got in the car while it was actively dripping, it would stop within a few minutes of driving. Several trips to the dealer and they couldn’t locate it. They would run it through the car wash, run the hose over it, power wash it…nothing. After a while I think they stopped believing me. Finally, I got lucky, they did all that and couldn’t find anything, but this time I hung around talking to someone and when I got back into my car about 10 minutes later it was wet, so I dragged the service writer out to my car to see for himself. They ended up contracting it out to someone that specializes in car leaks. The leak that I had required the water to pool up in a certain spot and then drip down into the car, so a wind running over the top of the car (when the car is moving) or a driving rain (like from a hose or a power washer) wouldn’t allow the water to pool and it wouldn’t leak.
And this is all just a long winded way of saying that if dumping water over the top of the car doesn’t cause the leak, trying running the hose a bit slower, maybe make sure it get’s into all the nooks and crannies for a while and then turn it off for a few minutes.
My car has a leak where the drivers side window meets the rubber gasket at the top. Only in one spot where there is a seam in the window gasket. I wouldn’t notice it while I was driving but I saw it drip one day while I was parked. Parked outside during a heavy rain, the drip was enough to soak the carpet. Fortunatly I have a garage to park it in now.
You could look for a similar seam or flaw in your window gaskets or sun/moon roof gaskets and maybe spray the gasket with a silicone spray.
I don’t know the car or the situation so here are generalities.
When something happens, always look to the next previous repair. Since the door was recently worked on, that’ the likely culprit.
Second, if and until I found the problem, I would consider putting a hole in the floor pan to relieve the water so it can dry more thoroughly and avoid mold and smell.
You could test the door theory by taping off all the edges of the door and spraying it with water or waiting for a rain. Better to squirt the vehicle with a hose because you can do that on your schedule. OH, I forgot that it rains every night where you are. Water can travel a long way before it gets to the final destination, but I suspect the door work.
Most cars have a channel above the door so water runs to the back back. If there is a rust spot there then you have to chase down the path. There is also a seal to the side window and back window. Get in the car and have someone hose down different areas.
Plugged drain holes. The overflow is entering the car.
My English is different enough that I’m not sure what the “rear off side foot well” is. Is this what I would call the rear floor of the passenger side of a left hand drive vehicle?
Your roof peaks at the B-pillar, and so water that accumulates in the roof ditch is drained to the front and rear of the vehicle. The photos on Google Images would seem to indicate that the rear of the ditch is supposed to drain through the hatch area, i.e., there’s no water communication between the roof ditch channel and the door opening. If water is infiltrating through the door opening, it would have to be a huge freaking leak that you’d be able to see.
I don’t know about your case but my son had this problem. A rodent had chewed a hole under the hood somewhere and built a nest there. I didn’t see where, the mechanic took quite a bit of time finding and fixing, so can’t describe it exactly. This was channneling rain from the windshield into the front passenger floor. If your car sits for long periods I would suspect rodent damage.
Thanks for all the replies - I did some more research on this and there’s a 25 page thread on a seat forum describing the issue. Apparently very common with VAG cars and almost certainly due to a deteriorating foam seal behind the interior door panel. The fix is a 30 min job though, so should be easy enough to sort out. I’ll check for all of the suggestions people have said whilst I’m at it just in case it’s something else - Cheers.
