Hello all...
Took a brief break from the books yesterday to give Polo some much needed tlc before people start to believe I actually chose black alloys...and he's leaking!
The boot is soaking on the driver's side, but I can't see where it's come in from. It's the not the rear wash as that has leaked before and is now so well attached there's no hope of it ever leaking again, and it's not coming in through the obvious places around the lights either. The spare wheel is sitting in it's own puddle at the moment, and I almost think the water is coming up from below, rather than in from above, but that would be stupid, wouldn't it?
Now, at the front... twice now when I've first got in the car after some rain, I've driven around a corner and heard water running across from driver's side to passenger side, and then a sizzle, like it's hit the speaker or something. The first time coincided with a damp footwell on the passenger side, but since then, nothing. What could this be, and could it be anything to do with the fact that right in the bottom corner of the windscreen on the passenger side there is a tiny patch of what looks like white condensation, but wont clean off as it appears to be in the glass?
Sorry for all the questions - need to know most importantly about the windscreen I suppose... if it needs fixing?
Thanks!
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Firstly the windscreen, water has got between the glass on the laminated windscreen, as you probably know the windscreen is made of two seperate panels of glass with a plastic layer sandwiched in between. The water leak in the front is the door seals, replace with a non genuine part and that will solve the footwell leak. The rear will more than likely be the seal, also, try smearing the seal with vaseline, shuting the boot, opening it again and seeing where the vaseline has marked the boot lid, just to check you are gettig a good seal. I think its a 94-95 polo you have is`nt it?
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Windscreen leak anything to do with the prang?
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Thanks...
Sho, it's a 96/97 Polo but I will try the vaseline thing, thanks.
Mapmaker, I would love to blame the windscreen thing on the people that ruined my car, but unfortunately it's been there about a year and I've only just got round to wondering what it is.
What about the sizzle on the speakers though?!
Thanks!
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Sizzle is PG's bacon-frying machine that gives rise to grease spots on the driver's seat.
Alternative suggestion for boot is to put small boy inside it, and then to water seal to identify where leak may be. (Result of prang?)
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Yes and I'll have some of whatever you've had this morning!
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Ooh err... In desperate need of bacon sandwich - perhaps you could assist...
Serious about putting small boy (and torch) in boot, and then pouring water onto boot seal. If you are lucky, small boy gets wet and identifies source of dripping.
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would love to hire RJ junior out for this job, unfortunately in may he is pushed up chimneys.....
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I?ve had two main experiences with leaking cars; the first was on my old Pug 205 (now sadly no longer with me) and the second on my friends 306.
I never managed to track down the leak on my 205, however I did manage to minimise it quite successfully by smearing silicon on the bodywork seal around the rear wheel arch. It still continued leaking from somewhere though, just not as quickly!
With the 205, the water used to run through and end up in the passenger foot well, where it would stay, forming it?s own little reservoir. When left unattended for a while the amount would build up enough to give an audible slosh noise when cornering.
Have you tried to take the passenger foot well carpet up yet? On the 205, I chose to remove all the insulation from the passenger foot well as it would have been neigh on impossible to dry out each time it rained. The bottom of the carpet (the nice red stuff) was coated in plastic, so luckily any dampness never caused a problem to the carpets themselves.
Secondly, my friend and I were trying to locate the leak on his 306. The main suspects were the windscreen seal, door seals, aerial and sunroof (place your bets now!). He?d recently had trouble with the aerial and windscreen seal so we set about these two first, but without success. They weren?t to blame.
We then tried the door seals. He?d already completely removed the carpet (yes ? not an easy job), and a quick test showed both seals were good. So we moved up to the sunroof.
Here we struck real gold (not literally). The leak was definitely coming from this area. Keen to waste no time, we set our brains to the task. The sunroof itself didn?t appear to be at fault at all. All our precious water was drained successfully down the drainage channel, albeit straight into the drivers? footwell. ?Rascal? we exclaimed as we trudged back to the village well.
So we set about discovering where the drainage pipe should, in an ideal world, excrete its load. The passenger side one seemed to exit via a small pipe on the underside of the car, which is exactly the sort of thing that the one on the drivers side didn?t do. So naturally, we presumed the pipe made its way down the windscreen pillar and set about finding out where it went after the pillar stopped.
We discovered that, for some reason, there wasn?t just a bit of pipe to channel the water away in a controlled manner as Peugeot had chosen to route the water though some bits of bodywork as well. It was from one of these bits of bodywork that the small drainage pipe on the bottom of the car had become blocked. This meant that the water had no choice but to overflow and deviate from its natural path.
Well, for the sake of cutting an ever increasingly long story short, we found that the culprit was not where the water was getting in, or indeed where the water was going, but was how the water was unable to escape. So maybe you could also check all the little drainage points to make sure they?re not the problem first.
The only other thing I can think of is to test possible sources of leaks by giving him (Polo) a good hosing and/or jet wash to identify any leaks. Other than that, I don?t know I?m afraid. But jolly good luck anyway.
Kev
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Blocked sunroof drains are best cleared by sticking a piece of stiff wire down them (13Amp ringmain is nice & stiff). If that doesn't help, run water down as well, and keep on digging about with the wire.
Finally... get hold of the core from an old speedo cable (from scrap yard), and use that instead. YOu can even put it on an electric drill & run it slowly.
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Another good clearing implement is a length of that white plastic-coated stretchy wire used to hang net curtains and suchlike. May need to wrap the sharp end in plastic tape.
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