i know this has been covered before,but it is driving me nuts,i have a 2003 octy vrs,i have problems with it steaming up in damp,cold weather,not wet weather,so far i have seats out,carpet up,everything is completly dry,boot carpet out,dry in there as well,pollen filter out,housing out,sealed up,new genuine pollen filter,fitted correctly,gromet beside pollen filter sealed up,bonnet cable grommet sealed up,both drains at front arches cleaned out,air con drain at bulkhead checked,fine,im lost as to what to check next,i have done all the usual octy things,but it still persists in steaming up,1 last thing i ran vag com on it,came up with a fault relating to climatronic,it was temp control flap motor,but heater works ok,if not that powerful,i have also tried shutting all vents,has anyone got any ideas,have heard talk about recirculation valve,but again u hear note of heater change when u switch recirculation on,and no i dont run with recirculation on,any help appreciated.

What about door seals?

Could they need replacing due to allowing mositure inside the car?

Mine steams up a bit as well and if ive got passengers in the car I have to have the back window heater on due to steaming up. I usually have the climate on and sometimes the AC ( I keep it running regulary to make sure the seals dont dry up). This clears the problem but park up and leave the car for more than 10 mins and when you come back to it its steamed up again.

I just assumed it was the door seals and will get round to replacing them when I have time.

Do you mean the door membranes? that would be my initial guess. AC works as long as it is warm enough for the AC to run (I believe >3 deg c)

I'd think either it's the cold itself (isn't a/c disabled below +5C rather than +3?), door membranes, or the scuttle drains being blocked.

i know this has been covered before,but it is driving me nuts,i have a 2003 octy vrs,i have problems with it steaming up in damp,cold weather,not wet weather,so far i have seats out,carpet up,everything is completly dry,boot carpet out,dry in there as well,pollen filter out,housing out,sealed up,new genuine pollen filter,fitted correctly,gromet beside pollen filter sealed up,bonnet cable grommet sealed up,both drains at front arches cleaned out,air con drain at bulkhead checked,fine,im lost as to what to check next,i have done all the usual octy things,but it still persists in steaming up,1 last thing i ran vag com on it,came up with a fault relating to climatronic,it was temp control flap motor,but heater works ok,if not that powerful,i have also tried shutting all vents,has anyone got any ideas,have heard talk about recirculation valve,but again u hear note of heater change when u switch recirculation on,and no i dont run with recirculation on,any help appreciated.

Get it scanned and also do an observation of the V71 flap motor (the recirculatory air motor) and put it in basic settings too in order to adapt it. Can you hear it working chnging the air from outside to sucking from the passenger footwell when you press the recirculatory button? These are a common fault, £75 from dealers (though I found a source cheaper now) and pretty horrible, but not impossible to fit. If they fail in the recirculatory position, you never get any fresh air and the inside of the car is always steamed up & goes stale.

Greg.

hi greg on the climatronic side,vag com came up with fault code 01271,posistioning motor for temp flap v68,i dont think thats the same as recirculation air flap motor,i can hear heater note changing when switching from fresh air to recirculation,1 other i have noticed is my drivers seat belt gets damp,but carpet is dry,im thinking door membranes,priced them today £10 each,just gonna get them and fit them,and while washing car at weekend,noticed very slight dribble at rear wiper motor grommet,so gonna change this as well.anyone else had a damp drivers seat belt,if so what was causing it? cheers graeme

My 2001 Octy has suffers from a slightly damp drivers seatbelt, but I have not tracked down the cause. My car has after market speakers and the door membranes have been cut, although I don't believe they are the cause. No other leaks to speak of.

As I have no technical advice..............too much car nookie? :P

hi greg on the climatronic side,vag com came up with fault code 01271,posistioning motor for temp flap v68,i dont think thats the same as recirculation air flap motor,i can hear heater note changing when switching from fresh air to recirculation,1 other i have noticed is my drivers seat belt gets damp,but carpet is dry,im thinking door membranes,priced them today £10 each,just gonna get them and fit them,and while washing car at weekend,noticed very slight dribble at rear wiper motor grommet,so gonna change this as well.anyone else had a damp drivers seat belt,if so what was causing it? cheers graeme

No, the flap motor is V71 but do go observe it's operation in measuring blocks.

I had one in with a damp seatbelt, but the whole interior was damp from 2 years of a dog in the car & the V71 stuck in recirculatory. It was minging.

As the seatbelt isn't in the door, do we know this causes a leak onto it?

Greg.

mine does the same i just put it down to the car only getting used twice a week

mine was damp as it wasn getting used very often but having done nearly 2k in the last month or so its dried it out a lot inside and isnt anywhhere near as damp inside now.

I've said this before, but the first year I had my Octavia the steaming up drove me potty. I don't use the car much and I always had the climatronic switched off and never used the heater. As soon as I used the heater full blast for 10minutes towards the end of each journey and wound down the windows a few yards from home to let all the hot moist air out before parking, the problem vanished completely.

So if you can't find any fault/source of water ingress, it is probably just that the interior carpet/seats/heating ducts etc. need a good regular airing.

As I have no technical advice..............too much car nookie? :P

mine does this as well, annoying as ****, only i would have thought it would be the membranes on mine as my front doors are sound deadened up to the max

Like Greg, I would have put money on a faulty recirc flap motor or broken flap. Given that you have a fault logged on one of the flaps, I would deal with that first.

Sit in the car with the car running (90 degree temp) for 10 minutes with the recirc off. Have someone pass you a COLD mirror and stick it in front of the vent. Does it steam up? If so it could be a faulty recirc flap or a leaking heater matrix. Are you loosing coolant? It doesn't take much to steam up the windows.

Is all of the seatbelt damp, or only the part that disappears as it rewinds. If it is all the belt then it is not a leak.

The outlet vents could be blocked. These are located in the boot of the car. Sometimes the boot liner can shift and block the vents. A quick check would be to put the fan on full and then open one of the windows an inch. If there a big difference in airflow from the vents then this could be the cause.

hi rwbaldwin its deffinetly not the heater matrix,doesnt use a drop of water,its just the bit of the seatbelt that rewinds that gets damp,will try the mirror thing,i have just got new door membranes so going to fit these this weekend,weather permitting and a new drivers door seal and rear wiper motor grommet,so will see how things go from there.

My seat belt was slightly damp, even had a little mould. I think there is a cold spot by the reel and hence condensation tends to collect there. No problem now.