Hi,

 

This is my first post, however I have been lurking over the years looking at the forum for tips with fabia maintenance and quick repairs. So cheers guys.

 

I have a Skoda fabia 1.4 16V Year 2000 that was kindly given to me by my grandfather when I had finished university. The car had 16000 miles on the clock and is virtually brand new however, slightly dated! I'm reluctant to get a new car for a few years yet as it is such a good runner. Repair bills have been low and until now have had no major problems (touch wood).

 

For the past 2 weeks or so we have had torrential rain on and off in the North of England. Last weekend I noticed a damp smell coming from the passenger footwell - upon lifting the foot matts I found that the footwell was completely saturated. Later on in the day I put the heating on, with the vents in the foward facing (windscreen) position to try and clear foggy windows. At this point I head a gurgling noise and when driving up a slight incline, water started dribbling out of the vent in the passenger footwell. By the time I got home I had a good 1/2 inch puddle in the passenger footwell :(

 

Can anyone give me any pointers on what could be happening and how I could fix the problem?

 

Since winter I have kept the vent dial in the down position due to problems with an icy interior windscreen in the mornings.

 

Cheers,

James

Sounds like your scuttle is full of water which means the scuttle drains are blocked, suggest you take the wipers and scuttle cover off and clean it all up.

Cheers Sepulchrave.

 

I was having a dig around here and found the following thread useful: http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/153416-leaking-water-ingress-funny-smell-inside-car/

 

I've managed to clear out rotting leaves and silt using that method so fingers crossed. If I still have issues I'll look inside the scuttle.

 

Cheers

Good find, that thread. :clap:

 

I had no idea that this drain existed. I thought there were just two at either end of the scuttle, leading to the wheel arches (a trickle of water is visible down each arch liner starting just around where the ABS wiring emerges).

 

I couldn't find a rubber flap as referred to in that thread, but the steady drip of water from just below the ECU  - straight onto a big bunch of wiring   - led to me unclipping the ECU, pulling it away from the firewall, and finding this little plastic ramp thing which appears to be the drain that might be most crucial w.r.t. the cabin fan air entry:

 

 

This is on an 05 plate car, is it different on earlier cars?

I tried to get a pic mid-drip but I got fed up after about 15 attempts. S'pose I should be happy that it was dripping.