Water ingress in 01 A8L - unlikely related to sunroof drains
 

OK all, I'm posting this for a friend. Last Friday he picked up a 2001 A8L 4.2qt. Over the weekend he went through a laser wash and the result is a wet driver's carpet and his right foot getting soaked. I am aware of the class action recall suit going on regarding the sunroof drains but I doubt that is the cause since the leakage seems to be more centered in the car rather than down a pillar (his left foot is dry). Ideas being tossed around are leakage through the cabin filter housing, the base of the windshield, the firewall somewhere, and the like.

Have any of you had similar issues with your A8s? If so, what was the cause of the leak? Thanks in advance for any insight.

There's a drain, up under the cowl... It gets choked with leaves & schitt and dumps water on the driver and/or passengers feet. I try to keep my under-cowl area generally clean of debris, so I've never hadda worry about this, but, I've heard many, many others tell a similar tale to your friends. Ya gotta get under the hood, remove the bits that hold the cabin filters down... Don't remember, exactly wherem but I vaguely remember it being up near the corner of teh windshield-ish.

Or, I'm 100% wrong. Either, or!

Awesome - thanks Jazz. I mailed a link to this thread to him but I'll pass it along in a few minutes. Much appreciated:)

Auditech'll prolly ring in with exact directions on how/where to find the plugged drain plugs, in teh next day or so...

Lol most likely. He tends to get in on the A8 posts. It sounds like placement of the filter is similar to the A4, under the passenger cowl. I don't know exactly where the drain is though. Should be able to find it but his advice never hurts.

Yeah jazz is on it. The most likely cause is where the cabin filter chamber meets the engine bay. The two filters are located on the hood but it all gets jammed in the center of the cowl, so if its leaking at that location it can leak on either the passenger's or dirver's feet. I would remove all the cowl garbage and see if you can fine a broken seal. If nothing seems aparent start introducing water (from a cup or something) at the lowest point in the cowl area and have another person stay inside the car to see if it leaks. Keep working your way up to the windshield until you can find where the water is leaking. Usually you can easilly find a white stained water trail of where its coming in.

Water leaks suck to diagnose, but its going to be related to either the cowl area, or the windshield seal.

Thanks guys, I'll pass this on and hopefully it'll be a fix.