Hi Everyone

I am looking for forum members that have experienced the problem with the door seals leaking on the rear doors of their vehicle. It is a widespread problem with Fabia Mk1 models and I also believe it effects other VAG cars as well. The problem seems to be that water runs down the outside windows, into the door itself and instead of the water being deposited on the exterior of the vehicle it gets deposited on the inside of the car making the footwells damp or even completely drenched.

I have already had a repair done on my vehicle (which skoda paid for half) however the problem has occurred again. I have asked Skoda UK to cover the costs of repairing the vehicle again in full and cover the costs of any inspection they want to make of the vehicle however they have refused and want me to pay for the diagnostics. As this is a widespread design/manufacturing fault across the range I believe that consumer law would be on our side as customers in asking for this to be rectified/repaired and that we should not bear the cost.

As Skoda have refused to cover all costs even if I make the vehicle available to them at a reasonable location I looks like I am going to have to pursue this matter with the small claims court. To do this successfully I would have to prove that this is a widespread fault so I am calling all Skoda owners who have had the same fault to come forward and provide me with a brief written statement to say you have experienced the same fault on your vehicle. This could be at any time in the past and you don't even need to still own the car, I just need to prove it is a widespread fault and not a one off. I know they have released a kit to rectify the issue and that will help our cause and form part of the evidence but I'm going to need more.

Hopefully if we all club together we can get the fault rectified on our vehicles without cost as I believe this is only fair when its a design fault across the range. Obviously a successful ruling in a court could prove favourable to anyone having the same problem in the future. Please also bear in mind that if Skoda offer to repair my vehicle without cost to me before a court hearing I would have to agree to it if they cover my costs as if I turned up at court and Skoda prove they have offered to cover all costs the case would get thrown back at me.

Again, I hope by pulling together we can stand up to them and get our vehicles repaired without cost to ourselves as it cost £138.26 last time and it needs repairing again. I am posting this in good faith and hope the moderators of the forum approve of this request and support what I am trying to do for us all.

Please let me know if you can provide a statement as comments on this thread will help but I will probably need more to prove our case in court should the case be heard.

Thanks everyone

Chris

For more information about the problem and repair This Website is great when it comes to explaining the problem and how to conduct a DIY repair

Me 2004 fabia vrs

I respect the fact that you want to "take on the big boys" but another part of me can't help thinking you're getting very excited about a fault that can (and has) been rectified by countless people for about £15 as a DIY job.

I couldn't be 4r5ed doing the repair so I just took out a rubber bung in the floor pan and let the water out.

PM sent explaining what I believe to be the real problem here.

Edited 15 February, 201214 yr by DRJ

I have sealed it using a silica sealant and it hasn't worked. Does it need a special kind of sealant?

Best type of sealant I've found is the sort that never truely sets like roof and gutter sealant.

i had the problem, the previous owner sealed one door and i did the other and it sorted it. I just used normal, clear, bathroom sealant and haven't had any wet carpet since

I still have the problem!!

When I bought the car back in June from a Renault dealer I spotted that the doors had been leaking and they agreed to fix the problem before I took delivery.

It leaked again in July so they had it back to try again, this time using the "official" Skoda repair kit, they also replaced one of the door cards as it was water stained.

We've had a decent dry spell but it rained again this weekend, so the car's going back to the dealer again on Monday for another try, maybe third time lucky :-)

Steve

One of my mates works at a Skoda dealer and says that there have been numerous bulletins about this problem from Skoda and is a well known problem with several methods of fixing being employed over the years, however, he will not get involved as he doesn't want to loose his job. His company have a discretion clause in their contract of employment and it is classed as misconduct to break it, which is a sackable offence.

He did say that they started out replacing the metal window regulator shell with a new seal on it, then they tried a rubberised cord to replace the seal, then they moved onto the cord and the green sealant combination and then finally, just the sealant.

I have sealed it using a silica sealant and it hasn't worked. Does it need a special kind of sealant?

You mean silicone sealant - and you shouldn't use silicone sealant unless you can totally dry the area out - not at all easy with a foam seal in place. You need to use a sealant which either cures with moisture present or which is not susceptible to water.

hi all, just checked mine now and they are dry, i've had a problem with my o/s rear door, in the end i went out and changed the 2 door cards as they had marks and i could smell damp all the time after it poured down on the other, bought them off ebay £70 for 2, finally swapped them when we had some dry weather, i just run a load of silicone sealant along the metal edge left it to dry alittle then pressed it to the metal and then run another bead over the recent silicone, seems its worked but still check the door card after prolonged rain, (typical welsh weather). also there is a post on youtube, thats what method i used, although its easier to remove the door completely does help the matter. hope this can be of help, hate it when there is problem involving water and skoda know this is a problem from day 1, think they would have cured it sooner rather than not at all.

all you need is like said, clear or white sealant (bathroom) its flexibly and it works. Going strong for a year now, and if it leaks i will do it again for a fiver

It's much better to use a water-curing sealant such as Plumbers Gold...

Well the lovely weather we are having right now has proved my Fabia (2006) has this problem. I thought I'd left this hassle behind when I sold my MK4 Golf.

Going to try the Plumbers Gold as soon as the weather improves, thanks for the tip DRJ.

Another thanks for the Plumbers Gold tip.

I had a 3 inch puddle in my drivers footwell after the rain a few days ago!

I've tried gutter sealant twice, and most recently bathroom sealant, both haven't worked.

What are people using to dry there carpets? Are wet vax machines any good?

I had this on my 2006 Estate......I sealed it a few weeks ago with Plumbers Gold. Hasn't leaked since....it's important to use a thick bead of sealant and smooth it out with a wet finger to cover the old seal entirely to get a good repair. The plumbers gold is not the cheapest and is not quite as easy to work as silicone sealant, but it cures even though the original seal is wet....which it invariably will be!

As DRJ says, it's very hard to get the original sealing materal dry, as it is a kind of foam sponge substance that just gets saturated with water. Perhaps after a long dry spell and hot weather, it would dry out enough to use standard silicone sealant.

Luckily my leak wasn't bad enough to flood the footwells, they were only damp....so I just let them dry out naturally. I imagine a vax would work well to get the worst of the water out.

I had this rear passenger side only resealed the carrier with Skoda Sealant Kit from dealer, this did not fix however due to the the water had caused the ridge the door seal sits on to rust and blow. After sorting the rust and a new door seal I just ran a bead of clear bathroom sealant along the rubber door seal sealing it to the car no water problems since and a dry car even after a jet wash.

If only the rear carpets have become wet then a normal vacuum will get the water out - you can peel the carpet back off the rear seat to assist.

However if the moistures got into the front through the connecting channels I believe the only way to get the underfelt dry is to take it out - which requires removal of the front seat or seats. Mine was left for several days over the boiler...

Horrible damp smell in my car when i got in to go to work this morning. Seems my O/S rear door has decided to start leaking again with all the bad weather. Nice.

I considered getting the cards off and applying some more sealant a few weeks back when the sun was shining, never got round to it.... :(

Going back to the original post this is'nt a life threatening safety defect we're talking about here, its a leaky door seal! Come on just get some sealant, get a practical mate to help you and do what the rest of us have been rather than causing a headache for the guys at Skoda UK?!

I used Silicone S50 to seal mine, worked fine..

Silicone S50 will only work if you've made the area totally dry first...

http://www.everbuild.co.uk/image/data/Tech%20Sealants/Silicone%20S50%20r.2.pdf

Curtains will stop the ingress getting worse in the short term and start the drying of the interior until the weather cheers up enough to get out there and fix it with sealant. I can't post a pic at the mo as I'm halfway round the world enjoying some better weather than you lot are having there, but if you search my posts there will be a pic somewhere. Its a bit of a basic fix but it will stop more water coming in.

For what it's worth, here are a couple of observations from when I recently had a 'proper' go at one of our rear doors (O/S).

The factory foam seal is stuck only to the door carrier, not the door panel. Not double-sided-sticky. This means that any flexure of the carrier panel or the door panel in between rivets will tend to cause gaps if the relative movement exceeds the foam's compliance. I could easily imagine that every time the door is shut everything will flex enough to break this 'seal'. Once water starts creeping through, it will tend to continue I think.

One feature in particular on the door's construction seems to actively direct water onto the carrier plate, instead of dripping safely past it to the drain holes in the bottom of the door. This fella: http://www.briskoda....aining-bracket/

It's a plastic bracket that links the door lock mechanism at the rear edge of the door to the carrier plate. Thought to be 'just' an assembly aid, with no useful function once the car has been built. Due to it's shape/orientation and location vertically beneath the little trim that separates the movable rear windows from the fixed quarterlight glass, it seems to unfortunately cause any water leaking past the window seal at that area to be channelled onto the carrier. In the absence of this bracket, and having sealed its mounting holes in the door carrier, this should no longer be a problem. If you think I'm making this up, follow the link for a pic of water staining on the inside of the carrier where that plastic bit has been attached.

Of course if your carriers are rivetted on, this is a bit of a pain to remove, but I felt it to be worthwhile, mainly 'cos I wanted to remove the foam seal from the lower third of the carrier in order to get a good amount of sealant in there instead, with everything nice and clean and dry. If you have bolted-on carriers, it should be pretty straightforward to remove this part. I think if you do remove the carrier before resealing, choice of sealant will be less critical, as it can be put where it is really required, in ample quantity, rather than on the outside of the problem. I used something called 'extreme sealant' or some such name from Homebase. Has been good through the recent monsoon.