Hi everyone,

I've been experiencing a problem with my Scala since many years (bought it in 2021) but still Skoda France is not able to help/provide with a solution.

I'll try to explain as english is not my native language. 🙂

This problem occurs when it rains a lot and that my car is parked in my street, which is slightly sloping (right to left or opposite).

It started when I noticed some condensation on the windshield and windows of the car.

Then I realized that the rear foot maps were wet after an heavy rain.

I finally understood the whole story when I once opened the rear door, and discover that water was actually dropping from the rear door seal, on the higher side of the street. (see first picture)

I told Skoda. The guy in charge of the car body department told me it looked like a problem with seal/wax that happened with some other models, and that solution was to cut the seal (see my questions at the very end).

BTW they said they had nothing in their skoda registry about this issue.

So they did these cuts, you can see one of them on one of the second picture. Then I started to monitor if this problem was still happening. I noticed that the cut of the left door was not located at the same position than the right door cut. I think it was too high on the seal, so the problem was still happening, the water was accumulating on a lower level (I must admit I'm not completely sure the problem was solved on the other side). I contacted Skoda again to ask to re-do the cut properly. This is when they offered to replace the seals, claiming that this problem should not be fixed by cutting a part that is supposed to block water.

I have now brand new seals but the problem is still happening, as you can see on the 3rd pic with this thin water leak also visible on the foot map.

I called Skoda again today, insisting that this problem should be solved.

The guy responded again that there is no other report of such issues. He offered that I leave the car to them so that they can try and reproduce.

After a quick search, I found out earlier today that some Rapids and other models did have a similar problem, but it was more about water accumulating in the door itself.

So my questions to you experts 🙂 are: have you ever heard about the same issue with a Scala ? Is it documented somewhere so that I can told them "SEE? There IS something!"?

Is it the same issue as with the Rapids a few years ago?

Any idea how to fix it permanently? As the Skoda guy said, cutting the seals doesn't seem like a 'professional' solution to me. 🙄

Thanks for the help!

Edited 16 September, 202516 Sep by jenny_pi
adding details

It is clear water is running around the seal and rather than draining outwards it's draining into the car.

Since this happens when the car is parked on a slope then it shows the seal is not doing it's job.

Look all around the door and check that the door is in contact with the seals around the window.

It is likely the water is running down the door from higher up until it finds its way past the seal.

You can place a thin string in various position around the door and then close the door. Try pulling the string, if it moves with ease then the seal is not making good contact in that area. (You'll need a friend to help you hold one end of the string.)

Or you can ask the garage to do a smoke test. This involves putting a (harmless) smoke generator in the car and looking for where the smoke comes out, this will likely be the area where the water is getting in.

Thank you for your input. I'll do the string test.

But if it passes the seal, it means it is on the lower part right? Else I would see water drops from the inside.

Could it be these drops that are visible on my 2nd picture?

Not sure if the garage will agree to make a smoke test as the car is no longer under warranty.

Again, they claimed there is no documented issue, so they say if the seal is new and the door is not crooked, they cannot do much. ☹️ (which seems completely crazy to me: am I supposed to keep a car that is leaking??)

So to you it doesn't look like the same door accumulating water issue that on Rapids or other models?

Edited 17 September, 202517 Sep by jenny_pi

It is possible the water can enter around the top of the door and then run down to the bottom.

When it gets to the bottom it hopefully runs out of the car but that is not certain.

The first thing to do is find out where it's getting in, so you have to test all around the edge of the door to find out if there are places the seal does not quite touch the door.

The next thing to check is to make sure it's not the door filling up with water. There should be little weep holes in the bottom of the door. If they are blocked then the water will overflow into the car.

The fact you said it happens when the car is on a side slope makes me think it's the seal rather than a blocked weep hole.

There does not have to be a documented issue - you have an issue, that is enough. Also if you reported the leak before the warranty ended then they still have an obligation to repair it. You should also make contact direct with Skoda customer service.

This looks like the same issue that has plagued a number of Skoda's... Namely that the inner door skin behind the inner door trim isn't sealed against the door frame and hence water is draining between the frame and inner skin onto the top of the door seal and then into the car.

The solution used to be resealing the inner door skin to the frame.

Edited 18 September, 202518 Sep by skomaz

Skomaz I thought the door only had 2 skins inner and outer. Is there a frame in the middle as well?

I may not have phrased it too well but I'd expect the leak is from one, or more, of the areas in pink on the image below

Thank you for your replies.

I'll try to run some checks on Saturday: I'll thrown some water over the door and check the weep holes. Also I will try the string test.

My thought right now is more that because the side slop, it is easy for the water accumulating in the door threshold to get inside the car. When the floor is flat, maybe the level is lower and the water is not getting in. I made the attached drawing to illustrate (note it is a random car pic, not mine).

As per the warranty, the problem is that the only thing I told before the end of the warranty was that there was condensation inside the car...

Only after I realized it was because of the water getting inside.

That's why I don't think they consider it is part of warranty. But I'll contact Skoda Customer center if I don't see any solution, thanks for advising.

@skomaz is it easy to remove the door skin? I have rear manual windows BTW. I could remove the skin to check where water is coming in.

I remember now that when I got the car, I realized it has audio speakers only in the front (yeah, 4 speakers doesn't mean 2 front + 2 rear 😑). Skoda never agreed to do the modification for me, so I asked a local car tuning company Skoda recommended. Could it be that when these guys mounted the rear speakers, they didn't do the waterproofing correctly?

Edited 18 September, 202518 Sep by jenny_pi

If water is collecting n the threshold I very much doubt that it will get over the seal and into the car, unless the seal is not fitted correctly and water is getting under it instead (albeit that would still require quite a depth of water on the threshold before it happened.

From your pictures it looks like the water is coming into the car from behind the interior door trim - ie it is running out from the gap between the plastic interior door trim and the blue metalwork at the bottom of the door (you should be able to check this by feeling along that join or gently pulling the trim to see if any more water leaks out. If that is the case the only place it can be coming from is those pink areas I noted. That will either be because the original foam seal along those pink areas has perished, or because it might have been damaged during the speaker installation and is no longer sealing properly.

The doors are design such that any water running down the window glass naturally drains into the inside of the door and should drain away through weep holes in the bottom of the door. If they are blocked or the car is on a slope such that the water cannot reach those weep holes it will get out somewhere else at a low point that isn't sealed (for example those pink areas).

If it were me I'd check the weep holes in the bottom of the door are clear and then take the interior door trim off and seal around those pink areas with silicon or polysulphide sealant, which I think should cure your problem.

Edited 18 September, 202518 Sep by skomaz

Thanks!

Any tip to take the interior door trim off? Any existing video tutorial you can recommend?

Don't take the interior trim off as a first step.

You can see the weep holes near the bottom of the door. It's easy to check if they are blocked with a bit of stiff wire. If they are not blocked then water can drain out.

What skomaz say is right to the extent that if the car is parked leaning over at quite an angle then the water that gets in at the base of the window could drip onto the inner door skin. (usually it drips down into the bottom of the door).

If this is what is happening then you will need to take the door card off. and consider sealing up the areas he shows in pink on his diagram.

If you want to take the card off it is mostly held on by clips but there will be a few screws as well. The clips are bust opened using a trim clip tool to avoid breaking the clip or damaging the trim.

Hum I'm not sure to understand the second part.

First part is clear: check if weep holes are blocked.

But second part I don't see the link between the water that could get in at the window and sealing the pink zones.

I made this very ugly drawing (sorry 😅). The car is parked leaning over. We have the grey plastic of the inner skin, and the metal inner side of the door with the pink zone skomaz drew.

Could you please draw what would be the path of the water in my case?

If the water gets in at the base of the window, why would it help to seal the pink zone?

Edited 19 September, 202519 Sep by jenny_pi

See if this helps

It does, thanks!

Hi,

I made a few tests today, with the help of a neighbor.

First, sweep holes don't seem to be blocked by wax or anything else.

Then he threw 4 10-liter watering cans in a row over the window. I was inside , monitoring what's going on from the inside.

I carefully looked at this zone in red. In the very back, I could see the blue body of the car.

During the 4th watering can, I started to see some water in the zone where the body is visible.

Very quickly, the water got into the car like shown in the picture below.

We moved the seals underneath the door to see if water was accumulating there, nothing came down.

Then we did the same thing but the door open, to see if water flows from the trim of the door (speaker for example), from the hole at the bottom of it --> nothing is coming down this hole or from the plastic of the door trim.

Conclusion :

• good point is we managed to reproduce the issue.

• bad point is that we have no idea where water comes in and goes through.

I'll bring the car to Skoda on Monday and tell them how to reproduce. Let's see what they can find...

Edited 20 September, 202520 Sep by jenny_pi

Have a look at where the bottom of the grey trim meets the blue metal. I'd wager that 'join' where the two butt up against each other, plastic to metal is wet (run a tissue along it and I bet it comes back wet even now with no extra water thrown on the outside of the door).

I'd love to be proved wrong but I'm 100% certain the issue I noted in previous posts is your problem... I've had it with previous cars.

Edited 20 September, 202520 Sep by skomaz

When we did the open door test, I could not see water going out that "join" between the trim and the metal. You might be right but that's not obvious to me.

When the door is closed, as the water rises until it passes the inner join, everything down there is wet so it is complicated to see where the leak is.

I'm clearly not tempted to remove the trim, as I dont know how to do that and I am afraid I would break some clip or anything else. I prefer that Skoda does it

You have generated good evidence. I think it is clear that the parking on a side slope is allowing the water that gets in at the base of the window to drip onto the inner door skin. This inner skin is full of holes and areas where water could get out into the car.

The only other thing you could try is putting the water onto the window on the low side of the car and checking it runs out via the weep holes. If it does then you have enough info for the dealer to fix it.

Hi everyone,

Skoda garage just called, car body team has identified where the leak is... and it is because of rear speakers... ☹️

I'll post the pic when I get it from them. Skoda says they can't do anything for this issue (I guess because they didn't do the installation), except removing the speakers and put a original (and waterproof) shutter instead.

Tomorrow I will call the guys who had mounted the speakers on the car 4 years ago. Their installation is far from being correct if water gets in! Pretty mad at them... 🤬

Edited 22 September, 202522 Sep by jenny_pi

They should be able to fit some water shields / baffles behind the top half of the speakers and then seal round them to sort that fairly easily. But its a shame they didn't do it when they fitted them.

Here is how it looks like (photo from Skoda).

They say there is no seal, only a kind of foam tape that they claim is not enough to prevent water to get in. Also, see the screw holes they made in the body to fix the speaker. 😱My concern is that I dont have any video to prove the speakers are the root cause.

Also I'm wondering : we threw 4 watering cans before it leaked. It might mean that water rises up into the door, until it reaches the speaker, and it passes the tape to the interior. Is water supposed to reach that high? Can it mean that weep holes are not draining fast enough?

Edited 22 September, 202522 Sep by jenny_pi

I just called the car modification company.

According to the guy in charge:

• yes, some water could enter the door of course, but never up to the level of the loud speaker. The problem started after 4 watering cans which might mean that the level of water rises up within the door before it reaches the speaker, which of course can not retain so much water.

• it is either a misconception of the car (too much water getting in OR not enough weep holes) or the weep holes are stuck with something (but they don't seem to).

Still, he offers that I bring the car, and check with the technician what to do after door trim removal and analysis. They even offered to drill more weep holes. They have great Google reviews, I have no doubt they'll make a good and clean job. And I can stay with them the whole time, which was not possible with Skoda as they clearly refused to let me stay (I didn't like that, it is clear lack of transparency and let to the situation where they didn't do the "water" test. They just removed the trim and decided the problem was because of the non-origin speaker ie. not from them.)

Appointment is taken for Oct. 4th... Stay tuned 😉

Don't take any nonsense.

Explain how you park your car.

Explain that Skoda Garage has told you why the speaker is a problem.

Ask for a better speaker with a water shield and for the speaker to be sealed into the door with a non hardening mastic. Also ask all screw holes to be sealed.

I once had a similar problem and cured it by sealing a sheet of plastic inside the inner skin with mastic so the speaker was protected.

Edited 25 September, 202525 Sep by Aldfort

Thanks for advising.

One question: if I remove the trim and the speaker, and pour water on the door: am I supposed to see the water level rising in the door? I guess it's not right, only a few drops should get in through the window and door seals.

Edited 25 September, 202525 Sep by jenny_pi

Quite a lot will get in through the window seal. It should all drain out via the weep holes. If is is not then clear the weep holes out until water will run out freely. If there is water in the bottom of the door it is a big problem.