[Vwdiesel] Rainy Season, Leaky Jetta

[Shawn Wright]

On 28 Nov 2004 at 15:54, Val Christian <val at swamps.roc.ny.us> wrote:

> > My Jetta also suffered the leaks in the door panels, described by others on 
> > this forum.
> 
> I assume that the newspaper trick, where newspaper is draped over the door 
> threshold, to identify leaking locations, would be helpful in identifying
> door leaks.  Can anyone comment authoritively on this?

Haven't tried it myself, but my experience out here in the rainforest is that any leak 
the results in water in the rear footwell has been from the front door seals. For some 
reason, the rear doors don't seem to suffer the same way. I don't think there are two 
many other places that can leak that will end up with water in that location. I would 
think any front dash/firewall/windshield leaks would soak the front foot area first. I 
would venture to say that if you have *suspect* any leaks, reach under the front seats 
and feel the sound deadening material between the carpet seam for dampness. 
Unless you get a lot of rain, a leak can go on for quite a while before noticing it, 
because that sound material is one big sponge! A nasty recipe for rust... although the 
undercoating seems very good on the inside, perhaps better than the outside... ;-)
 
> Thanks to all who have written their experiences thusfar.  It seems that 
> there are several common water leak modalities.  I wonder how many more will 
> be documented?  Thanks everyone.

The only other one I've had in A2s are: taillights leaking into trunk caused by grime 
building up on the gasket. Remove, clean in soapy water & dry, then replace. Repeat 
every few years, especially if you park under trees. Oh yeah, and the leaking heater 
core on the driver's foot problem, but that one is hard to ignore... :-)

I've had tons of front leaks on A1s, but nothing so far on the A2s, luckily...
--
Shawn Wright
I.T. Manager
Shawnigan Lake School