Hi, new here.

Skoda Yeti 2014 2.0 diesel (170bhp) 4wd. In the last few days I have noticed small amounts of water on top of the rubber floor mats, front and rear O/S. It was noticed first in the rear footwell but yesterday it was very evident in the drivers footwell. Warm fine day, so used the air con and noticed the water amount had increased. When we got home I removed the rubber mats and the carpets were extremely wet. We had to place old towels on the floor, stand on them (water rising visibly under pressure), wring out towels (soaking wet) and repeat many times until too tired to continue - will resume today.

Thoughts were, blocked drainage under windscreen (will check) but more likely air con drainage issue, particularly as using the air con made the problem noticeably worse. I drove the car into the garage and turned the air con on for 3 or 4 minutes - no sign of any water dripping onto the floor.

Recent events that may be relevant:- had an air con check at Kwik Fit several weeks ago and we noticed the mechanic jump, exclaim, accompanied by loud hiss of escaping gas. they said the pressure was OK and we left but immediately noticed the air con was noisy. Returned and they reluctantly agreed all wasn't right and re-gassed free of charge. Could the drain tube have been damaged? Also, a couple of weeks ago the Garage removed the engine tray to fix a leaking oil filter, could they have kinked/trapped the air con drain tube?

Sorry it's a long post, will appreciate any advice.

Hi, welcome to the forum. There are lots of posts over the years about water ingress so worth doing some searches. And if you resolve the problem it is always helpful to post what you found and how you cured it as it may help others.

I'm not an expert so what follows is what I've picked up from other members over the years,

If you have a sun roof don't rule that out. There are a lot of posts on this forum and elsewhere about the chassis that holds the sun roof cracking and that allows water to drain into the car - we did have extremely heavy rain recently. There are suggestions of d-i-y fixes using Capt Tolley's sealant but with variable success and no indication of whether it gives a permanent fix or just a temporary breathing space. On older cars the consensus was moving to sealing the sunroof so it can't open but at least gives a waterproof glass lid that lets the sun in. If you don't have a sunroof you can breathe a sigh of relief as replacements are wallet straining.

From what you describe I'd be thinking along your lines - someone's interfered with the aircon and immediately after that you have a problem. Bit gross I know but did you sniff/taste to see whether the liquid in the well was likely to be water or something containing chemical compounds? It might have helped reduce down the options of what the problem could be. As you've been able to partially dry the carpets unfortunately that's not an option now but if the water keeps coming in worth thinking about.

On the cars with sunroofs there are four drain tubes that run down the corners of the car. I'm not sure if they are there on cars without sunroofs but someone may be able to help with that. There have in the past been reports of these getting blocked and water getting into the car. From memory a common suggestion was to carefully thread a long thin cable from the accessible outlet holes at the bottom up the tubes to dislodge any debris. I say carefully as you don't want to puncture a tube part of the way up and make matters worse. (Just a though but these days you can buy endoscopes for a few pounds on eBay; don't bother with the ones that use your smartphone, they are usually rubbish. Possibly they are narrow enough to fit in the tube and feed up and see if there is an obstruction. The tubes are, I think, around 2m long so you'd need a "snake" at least that and maybe a bit more. If it fits not only would it let you see if there is an obstruction but also the head is unlikely to snag the rubber of the hose. There is an irony here - I had one with a 5m snake and found it clumsy to use so recently gave it to a charity shop when I bought one with a more manageable 1m "snake". I hope i don't live to regret it).

Sorry I can't be more help but unfortunately most of the really clever guys that knew their Yetis inside out have moved onto new marques and models taking their expertise with them but you might be lucky because occasional one or two look into the forum and post replies.

Good luck.

Thanks for the response. The car doesn't have a sunroof, so we can rule that out. Need to try to lift/remove carpets to get the underlay out, which holds water like a sponge apparently. Haven't worked out how to do that yet.

Just because it's free and easy, drop your pollen/cabin filter out and see if it's full of water.

Again, on the cheap and easy. have a sit in the car and get someone to go round it one area at a time with the pressure washer, and see when water comes in. Probably won't be an external leak, but it's the easy place to look.

thanks for the suggestions. Pollen filter totally dry, no sign of any damp on passenger (N/S) of car. As the carpets are dry above floor level, it would seem the water is entering very low down. I have checked the scuttle drains and they're flowing fine.

One thing that puzzles me (above the rest of this!) is how the rear passenger footwell has got so wet. Assuming the water (which is clean and odour-free) is entering the driver footwell, I cannot work out how it reached the rear, as there appears to be cross member under the driver seat and the carpet in front/on top/ immediately behind it, is all dry.