On my Octavia VRS 55 plate i had a funny smell in the car on investigation when i have lifted the boot liner the wheel well is

full of water and the Plywood carpeted liner has gone moldy. Firstly anyone have any ideas how the water has got in is it a

common problem and secondly am i ok to just drill a hole to drain the water. If it helps this has only just started filling up

since i had a Towbar fitted about Nov 2018. It was fine before so i suspect it might be something to do with them having

the rear bumper off and fitting the towbar etc. That said it could also just be a rubber seal that's failed somewhere.

Any help appreciated.

 

cheers

 

scribbler

There are some grommets in the part of the wheel well nearest to the tailgate.

 

The garage had removed a tow bar prior to me collecting it and I noticed water in the wheel well and could see daylight coming in!  On closer inspection they had made no attempt in re-sealing the grommets.

I would imagine they haven't made a tight seal around the cables after fitting your tow bar.

 

As for getting the water out, I just soaked it up with old towels, if there's more than that in yours maybe siphon/pump it out?

Or it may be the boot seal leaking

 

Or the rear washer motor 

 

Or the pipe to the rear washer has popped its joiner under the carpet in the passenger side "alcove"... under the cd changer if fitted.

 

Thanks , don't suppose anyone has any diagrams / photos of the offending areas for me to check. I know

where the CD changer is. But not sure where they come in and out for the towbar wires.

14 minutes ago, Scribbler said:

Thanks , don't suppose anyone has any diagrams / photos of the offending areas for me to check. I know

where the CD changer is. But not sure where they come in and out for the towbar wires.

Just look at the part of the wheel well that's directly behind the bumper, you may need to take the wheel out to get a good look but there will be a couple of grommets there where the wires come through.

 

My money would be on this being the point of ingress since you've only had the problem since the tow bar was fitted.

Well i think we have identified the problem. It looks like someone had removed the top bolts for both rear light clusters. they were both not touching the body at the top i think there is an internal seal and water was getting through the light cluster and soaking into the carpet and eventually down into the wheel well, 

We have tightened the Rear light clusters up now so hopefully sealed and preventing water ingress. The Towbar fitters had actually sealed the wire coming into the boot with a grommet so that want the source afterall all though they may have been guilty of removing the rear clusters and not fitting them back properly.

Swmbo's citigo had a wheel well full of water due to a bad cluster seal, replaced under warranty, so yeah... its highly likely youve solved it...