I know this has been discussed before but I must revisit this topic because i have not seen a solution yet to my particular situation. I have a 1999 Audi A6 1.8T 86000KM (right hand drive). When a heavy downpour occurs I get a leak in my back passenger footwell. I checked the drain point below the battery and it is clear. I checked my door rubbers and they are fine. I don't have a sun or moonroof. Am I missing other possibly clogged drain points?

Thanks in Advance

H

 

Strange occurence, especially if you don't have a sunroof. Is this happening while the car is parked or driving, or it doesn't matter?

If your drain hole below the battery would have been the culprit, then you wouldn't have gotten water in your rear passenger footwell without having the front well wet first, anyway.
Are you sure all your weatherstripping is in good shape? How about the door itself's weatherstripping? It may be possible that water gets inside your door frame and your drain holes on the bottom are plugged. If that happens, the water would spill over the door sills.
I'm just hypothesizing though, since I cannot picture any other explanation for water getting back there . From what I recall, the floor has no drainage holes unlike other cars. Also, there's no way you'd get water coming from the trunk area, even if the trunk's weatherstrip would be failing to seal. In that case, your trunk would be wet, and since the car has a big "lip" in between the trunk and the rear bench area, there's no way water would find its way in from there.

If that would happen with my car, I would double-check the weather stripping and the door card's rubber all around.

welcome to the forum. cheers

 

Thanks. I will take a closer look at the weather stripping to see if it has any breach.

H

 

Use a strip of paper between the seal and the body side frame. There should be a consistent amount of drag on the paper strip when you try to pull on it all the way around the strip. If you find an area where there is no drag, that is probably your leak point. Use some spray foot powder on this area. Water will leave streaks if this is where the leak is.

You can try this in reverse by putting your defrost on high, closing all your doors and windows, then spraying a soapy mix around your doors. Air is leaking where ever bubbles form. These are then potential water leak areas.

Good luck,

Bob

 

I must say joining this forum proved to be and excellent decision. Thanks Bob I am going to conduct the experiments you suggested and will give an update. I am also getting a repair manual so that I can trace all the drain points and see where else on the body I may get clogging that would ultimately cause a collection of water in the back footwell.

 

2000 A6. One more thing that you might want to check. I had a similar experience one time when I had a pool of water in the passenger side rear footwell after a good rainstorm. I checked everything and found that the seal at the bottom of the window on the outside of the door had somehow folded in and down into the door. The passenger side was facing into the wind during this storm. I cleaned the seals on all of the doors and check to make sure that they are not folded. Haven't had the problem since.

 

I am definitely going to check this out. I have not had any luck as yet but I am confident this will be solved soon. Update to come.

 

I found a solution to my leak. Hopefully this will work for you guys. What happened was I did some work on my A/C and the guy did a great job on the unit itself but in the process made a small crack on the fresh air intake on my system. That in turn caused water to seep into the body of the car and come through the seat tracks. So I used some silicone and sealed the crack and since then (knock wood) have not had a leak. Even through some really heavy downpours (I live in the tropics so that is pretty common). Hope this helps you out brothers.
You can also check for cracks on the pollen filter housing.
H

 

I have heard you should seal the shroud that runs along the bottom of the windshield and covers the base of the wipres , is this true ? Mine is loose put i have seen some cars with this siliconed down to stop water getting into the fresh air intake .. Any thoughts ?

 

I am of the view that it is not necessary to seal that shroud unless it has been compromised in some way (like a crack or something). It came from the factory as is, so once it is not compromised I think it should be left alone.

H