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Water in wheel well


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From searching the forum water leaking into the wheel well is a known issue on the Ocatvia (I had both the boot seal and the rear washer leak issues, both easily repaired) and the Fabia tail light leak, but nobody seems to have had it happen on their Superb. Well last night I found a few cm of water in the wheel well after doing a bit of searching after I noticed water on the rolly luggage cover and on the bottom of the plastic trim on the inside of the D pillar. The roof lining and the metal behind the D pillar trim are dry, so it's possible a few drops of water run off the channel under the rear window glass when I open the boot and land there, but it doesn't explain how so much water could end up in the wheel well. Both rear corners of the boot floor carpet were wet though this didn't extend into the side compartments.

 

We had torrential rain for a day or so earlier in the week and the car was parked pointed slightly uphill if that makes a difference.

 

The possibilities I want to investigate are:

The Octavia boot lip seal issue (I hope this is the problem as I can be fixed in less than a minute by putting holes in the bottom edge of the seal)

Is the drain from the panoramic roof blocked? How do I check this?

Leak around tail light - since there's a precedent from other Skoda models - no bulb warnings or sign on wet in or around lights though.

Leak in vents at bottom corners of boot that stop everyone in the car's ears popping when the boot/doors are closed (Again Octavia and Fabia drivers have reported this). Since these are low in the corners of the boot I don't know what path water could take to get in these vents, but it's a boot carpet/bumper off job, so last resort unless there's an easier way to check.

 

Has anyone tips for doing these checks or any other ideas on where the leak could be?

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From looking at the service manual, it could be the pan roof drain hoses being blocked. They exit into the rear wheel well, but the front end sits near the back of the roof, so if there was water coming off there it could feasibly end up in the boot. I can drop up the manual to you over the weekend if you want.

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Take all  the carpet out of the boot so it's bare then you'll have a chance of seeing where the water is coming from, dust around the edge with talc

Edited by peterposh
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I had a quick poke around over the weekend and the drain from the sunroof exits on top of the back of the roof, dripping water down the outside of the car (Hidden by the boot while it's closed) at each side of the boot seal, so there's not really any internal tubing to get blocked - neither side showed signs of clogging between the sunroof and the back of the car. I also discovered thanks to Chimaera that older models had tubes running down the D pillar to the wheel arches for drainage instead, which were more prone to problems. 

 

There was plenty more rain over the weekend and no sign of the leak. I'm wondering whether it's linked to the angle of the slope the car is parked at. It was pointed very slightly uphill when the leak occurred but pointed up a steeper slope while parked at the weekend.

 

It looks like I'll have to take the boot lining out (Which is a long annoying job - refitting it correctly is probably worse) and have a proper look inside to learn more :(.

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Had a similar problem with my OctyII - the water was getting in via a vent behind the rear bumper. Further trial and error showed that the water only appeared when the car was parked "nose down" so I opted for the cheap fix by parking "nose up" whenever possible. Problem solved! Not the perfect solution but it worked for me.

Dave

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I had a similar thing with my old carlton , one of the 4 sunroof drains was blocked at sill level so it only leaked when parked with that one facing downhill, the water would spill over the sunroof lip and run along the headlining leaving no trace other than the rear floor was soaked. I rodded it with my mum's net curtain wire

Edited by terrytowelling
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  • 4 weeks later...

I think I've solved the problem at this point as I've seen no further evidence of leaking for the last couple of weeks. After more heavy rain I looked under the rooflining and found a few drops of water running along the outside of one of the drain tubes from the sunroof. From there, while the car was parked pointed uphill, the water was running along the outside of the tube and dripping into the plastic D pillar trim, which directed it to the corner of the boot and then the wheel well. I reached in over the roof lining from the boot opening and pushed the rubber connection between the drain tube and the sunroof pan on a bit further and did the same at the connection at the boot end of the tube, which hopefully has sealed it again.

 

For anyone poking in around the sunroof (And other bits of the car), there was a layer of fabric tape wrapped around the tubing, probably to silence vibration, I've seen it on wiring elsewhere in this and other cars, that the glue had oozed through, which left a very sticky black residue on my hands when I touched it. Cleaning with soap and water had no effect, but it disappeared immediately on contact with brake/clutch cleaner.

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I've just pushed them back on for now. Whether this is enough long term remains to be seen, but fingers crossed so far.

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  • 11 months later...

i have this problem myself, have been struggeling for 3 days, checking everything....

found this post when searching for drain hose from roof, only to find out that i have the same thing as psycholist. just the roof slopes down to the boot door.

found that hte list laying inside of the slope had teared a small hole in the glue in the seam, between the side an top of the car.

 

just as a tip from me to check. a little bit of sika and the problem is gone for me.

 

sry for bad english

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  • 2 months later...

I used to get water in my wheel well and knew it was from the panoramic roof as could see water marks on the rear pillar trim, but never found a clear how to guide so never tried to fix it. However I recently went in search of the reason behind an intermittent rear wiper fault and found how easy it was to fix the leak problem. I did the following:

 

1. Pull off the trim of the rear pillars on each side

2. Pull the roof lining down, it is held on by velcro

3. I used a kitchen roll to wedge to roof lining down giving me enough room to access but not putting a fold in the room lining

4. I found the white tube which runs from each corner of the sunroof and enters the black rubber boot which in turn exits near to the boot hinges was a rubbish fit. The joints were wrapped in a kind of black bandage of which the adhesive had gone all funny and looked and felt like dirty grease. 

5. I cleaned all of this off with citrus cleaner and used a cable tie to tighten the joint and it has worked. 

6. The roof liner just needs feeding back into the boot rubber and then the pillar covers can be returned :)

Edited by woodysc1
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22 hours ago, woodysc1 said:

the panoramic roof


There used to be good guide on here in the Yeti section but alas the pics are all gone now/
Might get the camera out the next time I check mine;)

Edited by DEL80Y
Crap spelling
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