Hi,

I've had my Octavia about 5 weeks and after heavy rain or a car wash water leaks into the passenger front footwell. I've just taken it through a car wash for the first time and quite a lot of water has come into the car (when driving away from the car wash). The water gushes in when taking a right hand corner and seems to come from the left side (from where I'm sitting) of the footwell. It also happened a couple of weeks ago after torrential rain the night before.

When I turn a corner, left or right, I can hear some liquid going from one side to the other somewhere in the engine or general front area of the car and wondered if this might be related. Maybe there is water being retained that should drain away.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Common problem - try the search facility for "water ingress".

Common locations to check:

1. Loosen both front wheel arch liners and pull forward - you may find that silt has built up behind the liner blocking the drain outlets.

2. Take off front door cards to see if the foam membrane is damaged. If it is, replace it as water gets in at the bottom if its damaged.

3. If your car has a sunroof, check drain holes are not blocked.

Yep very common problem, you'll find millions of threads on it.

Leaves/crud have clogged the drain holes in the scuttle area, so it's just sat there leaking in through any open grommet holes in the bulkhead, or if it's really full maybe even soaking through the pollen filter. But it would have to be an inch or two deep for that probably.

Remove both plastic scuttle panel pieces and clean out the area. Also you may need to remove gunk from behind both the wheel arch liners/mudflaps. You wont have to remove any wheels or jack anything up, just turn the wheels lock to lock to get acces to the screws in the arch liners.

For a test to see if I'm right, just poke a hose into the bottom of the windscreen, if the scuttle fills you know it's not draining and you have to clean it out.

Don't park near trees in autumn! (easier said than done!) You have to pull any leaves out straight away to keep on top of it. Once they get wet and washed in, you'll never get them out externally.

Hope I helped...

Thanks guys, I did try a search, must of done it wrong as I came up with zero.

I will try these things out tomorrow when it's light again....

Well that seems to of worked - first I removed gunk from the rear of both front wheel arches, then I gently poked around with a screwdriver at the edges of the scuttle area (?) and soapy water ran on to the road. The reason I didn't remove "both plastic scuttle panel pieces and clean out the area" was that I can only see one large piece of plastic which runs the the entire width of the car and is attached to the windscreen, so I couldn't see anything that I could remove, but then I'm far from an expert when it comes to cars.

Anyway, thanks a lot.

Awesome, nice one bud. Glad your sorted.

That plastic cover joins in the middle, and you can remove the passenger side easily, but the wiper arms have to come off for the driver side piece. So you saved yourself some work there anyway.

Job done!

Nice one! The scuttle panel can be a pig to remove, and can be broken easily in cold weather. It's a job that usually involves skint knuckles too.

i removed my skuttle panel last night to find the plastic water run off,had a cracked hole in it.the water was going through the cabin filter ,and into the heater fan houseingfilling the car with water,the pollen filter was replaced at a garage in feb this year,it will not be going back there again.i now had to remove the carpet and dry the car out

Since they obviously broke your scuttle panel, i'd go and have words personally...

Not sure how much a new one is. Can't be more than £30.