To the Audi TT community i'm looking for some serious help out there. For the Last year and a half i've been driving around in a nice looking, mildew smelling, wet passenger floor car. Needless to say that i'm F-ing pissed off. We all know that Audi,VW has a common problem of retaining water because of faulty drains. God forbid that you would see these problems on a god damn Porsche, never. well let me get started.
I have been told that there are many causes of a wet floor. Mine only happens after hard rain storm. So I dont think and doubt that it the heater core. Let me explain some of the things that I did to cover all the bases. I removed my front passenger wheel well, which i did see a brick of dried up mud, and cleaned it out.
I also with in the last 2 years had to replace the front windshield twice. With that said Let me focus on the bottom black plastic cowl at the base of the outside of the windshield that covers the cabin filter. Each windshield came with the black molding at the base of the glass , which is slotted with a grove so that plastic cowl can snap into the groove and stay in place, both windshields i had a problem with plastic cowl staying in. In passing someone explained that it had to be snapped into place at all times on a TT. So yesterday i got some black silicone, and made it stay into place nice and evenly, you can't tell that i used silicone . Fellow TT owners I would welcome your input on this, perhaps some past experiences. On a TT the area where the cabin filter is if it gets wet it does drain into/behind the wheel liners, which would explain the dried up brick of mud.(PS:if you have to replace your windshield, pay the extra money and go to the dealer
to get it.)
***For The Drivers of TT Roadster you may or may not know that there are 2 rears drains behind the hinges/strut for the power convertible top one on each side, very tuff to see. when it rains water does get into/inside the car where the hinges are, it suppose to. That area has a catch tray with a center hole, with a crown like piece of plastic over the hole, which block out any big objects that go into the tray, so it wont block the drain. Water drains down into/inside the rear quarter panel into the side rocker skirts, which then drains out of the rear wheel well, behind the liner, on the side closets to the door. I snaked a brake cable wire down that hole, where I can hear it hitting the bottom of the rocker, i the poured a bottle of water down the drain, which came out of the rear wheel well. HAS ANY ONE EVER REMOVED THE SIDE ROCKER BEFORE?? let me know, because it looks like a major pain in the ***. apparently leafs and garbage get in to rocker and need to be cleaned out.
Another thing that i want to note, on the sheet metal floor boards of TT's underneath the carpet and it's thick padding there are rubber plugs. I noticed under the TT(outside), the car usually comes undercoated. with that being said Audi does a poor job of undercoating, because the rubber plugs on the floor board have to be undercoated from outside underneath because, the rubber plug deteriorate from outside-in, i have to replace 3 of them. There are a lot of the rubber plugs on the floor boards. Most of the plug are so coated well underneath so much you really need to l close to see them.
Look everyone i'm sorry for make this a long epic saga, but i can't be the only TT Roadster driver that's going through all this. I welcome all replies comments, but would really like to hear from TT Roadster drivers that went or are going through the same B.S. that i'm going through. Thanks to everyone for reading.
JT

 

My 2001 Audi TT has the same horrible problem. It rained so bad the other night and the next morning, I got in the car and stuck to my seat. it was so freakin damp. The floor was all wet. It smelled like molded *** funk. It was disgusting. It was definitely not coming from the convertible roof window, as I had that caulked previously. I read another audi forum post and this is what he said:

Sounds like the drip tray , the pipes to it are from the water drains from around the roof , Roadster yes ? These go into the drip tray the drip tray then gets rid of the water through the floor onto the road , if the drip tray gets blocked with crap it will then flow into the car thus wet carpet behind the seat, i did not know you could get to this through the boot, have Seen this prob on here a few times now , some have had to remove seat and carpet to get to it , some have gone to dealers or stealers i should say with a labour charge of around £400.00. So now you have got to it and one either side, clean it all out then dry out the best you can . NOt had this prob touch wood , tapping my head would also say try and test the pipes to se they are clear plus the drain from the tray through to the floor, dont know what these look like so cannot say what to use. Would be good to see pics of this if you can , also did you have to remove all the boot lining to get to this at the bulk end where yuo would be able to see the Bose amp ???? if you have bose that is .cos you got me thinking now , as have noticed the driver side seat belt does fell damp at times and i guess that comes from behind there somewhere...have removed all panels behind the seats B4 to get to cd changer to remove ,but was not realy looking for anthing else. Cheers


ps- i have problems with the electrical as well- probably a result of the clogging drip trays. My key remote does not work, even with a new battery change. My fuel guage is completely off. Emty reads at half a tank. The car makes an annoying rocking sound as well. For now i am going to put one of those de-humidifier hanging bags behind the seats until i have a day to remove the carpets and seats. What a freakin ordeal. Is there an easier way to get to these drip trays to un-clog them?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

I read through the prior postings and didnt see any resolves or easiest ways to access drains and drips lines. Were you able to resolve?

 

So I completely empathise with the problem having had to use a Rug Doctor to suck up rainwater from both foot wells for days! I found both drip trays were overflowing. The cause was a broken rear windscreen and the glass that had made its way into the trays and pips. I removed what glass I could get to and, I guess it was the drastic last resort as these trays are awkward to deal with, but I used some strimmer line (thick nylon cord) and gently pushed the 'crap' out and with a sense of relief saw the trays empty in front of the rear wheels. So I don't know if I've knackered the tubes yet, but am confident the source of the problem has been identified and a 'fix' albeit perhaps temporary was found

 

Sorry to hear about all of your problems. I too had the same problems. I also caulked the windshield plastic strip (I don't think it did much good.) I would have up to 2 inches of water on the floor board after a heavy rain. I sounds like you already completely know this, but my only problems were the 4 drains. The 2 below the convertible hinge and the 2 under the hood hinge on each side. I snaked both of these and wow did I get a bunch of crap out of all four. The pans are clean. I just put a high spray nozzle on the end of my garden hose and stuck it down these 4 holes and let it flush for 10 minutes to make sure all the crap was out. There is another two drains under the door hinges that need attention. Once you have cleaned the drain holes from the hood hinge down the the running boards make sure you continue to clean the rest until it goes out the drain. If you don't the water will overflow across the threshold and into the front of the seats. My CCM got ruined before and so don't want to go through that again. I put a new CCM in a pin bag (water proof) and zip tied it high on the dividing wall between the trunk and the interior. I think you know all of this already, but it solved my problem. I still get a few drops of water from the back of the top where it is suppose to be tight against the material by the bar. I can't figure out how to arrange the last 8 or so inches of the top trip that hangs inside of the auto. I think it is suppose to act as a gutter and run any water that does get through over to the drains under the top hinge.