Fabia Estate -water in spare wheel well

[sharksworth]

I am fully aware and have hopefully fixed the issue with the wet carpets in the rear passenger footwells.

BUT : despite a good search of this forum no one seems to be mentioning water collecting in the Spare Wheel Well.

The carpet in the boot (Fabia Silverline Estate) is dry on top and substantially dry underneath, but pints of water are accumulating at an alarming rate. The rear washer functions absolutely fine and there is no obvious sign of any entry point for this water.

I would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction here.

great forum by the way !!

Thanks in anticipation,

D

[ric04vrs]

check the rear washer pipe on the tailgate, when its off the water runs down through the boot striker onto and into the wheel well

[Fabby]

If you use a full strength screen wash (nice dark blue colour), then you will be able to tell if the fluid is washer fluid or water from elsewhere.....good luck

[tag1_uk]

I had this problem on a previous car due to the ingress of rain water. Things to possibly check are the rear light clusters (both the plastic within the cluster and the seals where it joins the bodywork), the rear quaterlight windows (as it is an estate car) and the boot seal. Try stripping back some of the interior trim and pour water over the lights, rear windows and boot seal and see if you can identify where the water is getting in (starting from the bottom and working up). Hope you find it, these water ingress problems can be a pain.

Edited 5 February, 2010 by tag1_uk

[Gypsy]

I am fully aware and have hopefully fixed the issue with the wet carpets in the rear passenger footwells.

BUT : despite a good search of this forum no one seems to be mentioning water collecting in the Spare Wheel Well.

The carpet in the boot (Fabia Silverline Estate) is dry on top and substantially dry underneath, but pints of water are accumulating at an alarming rate. The rear washer functions absolutely fine and there is no obvious sign of any entry point for this water.

I would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction here.

great forum by the way !!

Thanks in anticipation,

D

[Ian M]

Here's what I replied to an earlier topic to do with condensation:

If you're suffering regular condensation problems and your door seals and screen washers check out ok, it's worth looking in the spare wheel well. I found that water collects here if you've got a leak - in my case the cause was one of the two stale air vents on the rear scuttle (behind the bumper) being slightly misaligned. The clips holding the vent trims are pretty dodgy and easily displaced if you happen to catch them when removing the spare, for example.

You can remove and re-fit a vent carefully from inside the boot by keeping hold of it as you release the clips, then twist the vent to remove it through the aperture. Don't let go or you'll probably need to remove the rear bumper to retrieve it, though!!!! If the clips are broken a new vent costs about £7 and the new (improved?) ones seem to be a more positive fit, without a separate seal.

Another leak source can be the panel seal under the tailgate hinge cut-outs at the rear of the roof panel - as again I have experienced - but I suspect this is not common. Funnily enough, mine started after some really cold weather a year or so ago and I reckon it was expanding ice that cracked the joint. If you do suffer from this you will probably find a wet boot carpet caused by water running down the inside of the 'C' pillars. I successfully cured mine by drying out the joint thoroughly and putting a bead of sealant along the joint on the inside rear edge of the cut-outs. Hope this helps someone!

Edited 13 April, 2010 by Ian M

[ajas]

We recently got an estate - whilst taking off the interior side panels to re-connect the fule filler flap cable, I noticed that there was plenty of condensation on the wing panels. Dried this all off and seems to have been ok since.

I sealed the tailgate hinge apertures at the same and have just done the rear lights as I had to take the bumper off to remove a tow bar.

I also found loads of water in the tailgate - when raising it, it poured out of the top apertures, so have sealed all around the rear window.

No rain since, so fingers crossed!

[toothandnail]

I found a completely new way of inducing condensation. When my rear door cards were leaking (natually, in the worst of the winter weather) and I couldn't do anything about it (no place to work and no way to dry the interior out), I bought one of the cheapy dehumidifer things that Halfords sell. Can't say it seemed to do much to help....

Anyway, after Brown's fixed the problem for me, I still seemed to be getting lots of condensation. Became quite annoying. Couldn't work out where it was coming from. Until the other day, I noticed the Halfords thing sitting on the floor in the back. I'd forgotten all about it.....

Pulled it out and found that I had done it an injustice - it was almost full of water. The crystals had worked until they were saturaed, then it sat doing nothing except releasing the trapped water.

I've now removed it and, strangely enough, no more condensation....

Paul.

Edited 18 April, 2010 by toothandnail

[TheChole]

Here's what I replied to an earlier topic to do with condensation:

If you're suffering regular condensation problems and your door seals and screen washers check out ok, it's worth looking in the spare wheel well. I found that water collects here if you've got a leak - in my case the cause was one of the two stale air vents on the rear scuttle (behind the bumper) being slightly misaligned. The clips holding the vent trims are pretty dodgy and easily displaced if you happen to catch them when removing the spare, for example.

You can remove and re-fit a vent carefully from inside the boot by keeping hold of it as you release the clips, then twist the vent to remove it through the aperture. Don't let go or you'll probably need to remove the rear bumper to retrieve it, though!!!! If the clips are broken a new vent costs about £7 and the new (improved?) ones seem to be a more positive fit, without a separate seal.

Another leak source can be the panel seal under the tailgate hinge cut-outs at the rear of the roof panel - as again I have experienced - but I suspect this is not common. Funnily enough, mine started after some really cold weather a year or so ago and I reckon it was expanding ice that cracked the joint. If you do suffer from this you will probably find a wet boot carpet caused by water running down the inside of the 'C' pillars. I successfully cured mine by drying out the joint thoroughly and putting a bead of sealant along the joint on the inside rear edge of the cut-outs. Hope this helps someone!

[TheChole]

Hi Ian - this sounds exactly like what I discovered yesterday after investigating why my back seats had a massive damp patch that appeared from nowhere. After some ferreting about in the boot, we discovered the spare wheel well was completely full of water and sloshing about through the bottom of the car. We emptied it out and tracked the source of the leak (we think) to a broken seal around the vent behind the left rear light casing. Is that the stale air vent you mean? Do you know where I can get a replacment one from and what the product code is? The dealers want £50 just to investigate the problem.

Thanks!

[Birbs]

Hi Ian - this sounds exactly like what I discovered yesterday after investigating why my back seats had a massive damp patch that appeared from nowhere. After some ferreting about in the boot, we discovered the spare wheel well was completely full of water and sloshing about through the bottom of the car. We emptied it out and tracked the source of the leak (we think) to a broken seal around the vent behind the left rear light casing. Is that the stale air vent you mean? Do you know where I can get a replacment one from and what the product code is? The dealers want £50 just to investigate the problem.

Thanks!

[Birbs]

Just over two weeks ago I discovered that the rear seat on my wifes 08 plate Fabia Sport was wet. I checked under the boot floor to find the spare wheel well was full of water to the top. I went straight down to the dealers service dept. where he checked it and said "oh dear not another one, I had one in half a hour ago with the same problem". The chief technician came over and punched out the grommets in the wheel well to drain it. He then removed the nearside rear lamp cluster and pointed down behind the bumper to show me that the seal had perished and said the other side will be the same. The workshop manager ordered the seals and the car was repaired 3 days later. The dealer presented me with a bill for £65. I paid it but asked the dealer why they were charging me for the repair as the car was bought from them new, had been serviced by them, had only been MOT'd by them two weeks earlier, had only covered just over 7000miles and was only two weeks outside of it's waranty. I stated that the amount of water present had not happened in the last two weeks and that I knew of others with the same fault. I said that I felt that it was the dealer's responsibility to take the matter up with SKODA and that I had purchased eight Skodas from them to date.

Last week I got a telephone call from the dealer "Claybank" Manchester Skoda, to tell me that they would refund my £65 as a goodwill gesture.

I had to clean and sanitise the rear seats and boot carpet myself as well as dry out the spare wheel well and tools, the sour smell inside the car has also disapeared.

[sullivan]

Hello all,

I have been having a similar problem with a water ingress. from browsing the forums water leaks seems to be a common problem! (mines is a mrk1 fabia hatch). striped the tailgate trim and discovered detached rear washer jet, no surprise there! but water is still getting in to the spare wheel well. after investigating the vents in with the spare they are leaking water!

Does anyone know where to get replacements for these vents? I would rather avoid the stealers and fix it myself if possible.

thanks.

[foulkesey]

I have a fabia 53 estate, i have repaired a door carrier, removed both roof rack rails and resealed as i had water cumming down the pillar by the rear passenger seat and the drivers handle above head, thats has now stopped. Think i am going to check my spare wheel well now though!!