Hello All,

I am thinking of buying a used 03 model superb TDi elegance 130bhp. However I have come across people who have had problems with water leaking from the pollen filter. How common is this problem and how can I check to see if it will be a problem on the car I am looking to purchase? Is there a fix for this?

Are there any other common issues to look out for?

Many thanks for your help!

Hiya, welcome to the Superb bit

I boguth my Superb in July. Since owning it, I've had to replace various interior bits of trim, but most of that is down th the previous owner, the police wrecking it.

The pollen filter issue is a common occurance in all superb models, and I don't beleive there is a cure, other than to make sure the pipes taking water from the front of the car where it runs off the windscreen away are clear of leaves etc. I have yet to experience the issue on my superb and fingers crossed I won't. If your car your looking at has this issue, look under the carpet of the passenger footwell and also check if the carpet is damp.

The main problem is the water hits the main electrical node for all things lighting inside the car and various other bits.

Don't let it put you off, the Superb IS a great car and I feel proud to drive one!

Thanks for the quick response.

Is it mainly from where the pollen filter is or can it get from the door etc.

I believe there is a DIY fix guide on another site but not sure if this is for the Superb.

I am changing from an Avensis and want a good diesel and believe the Octavia/Superb are best value diesels.

As far as I know it is the pollen filter etc.

The Superb diesels are really good, and I would have had one, if this one hadn't popped up first

The Superb is basically a Passat on a slightly longer wheelbase.

No real common problems to be honest. The water in the footwell thing only happens when the dealer doesn't put the scuttle panel back on properly!

Excellent cars. The PD130 is a superb mix of economy and power, and any spec is very well loaded with goodies.

I could not fault my Superb, and personally having owned a Fabia, Octavia TDI, Octavia vRS and Octavia 2, the Superb was best by far. Loads of comfort, economy, standard equipment is fantastic and most are available at silly monry now. I had the 130bhp unit in one of my Octavias and it was faultless, just a bit noisy from what I remember.

All the best.

I can certainly vouch for a the 2.5 V6 TDi. Its a a cracking motor and I am certainly not disappointed.

Used Superbs can be excellent value - but haggle hard as the resale value is poor.

The water leak problem is serious and is a disgrace to VAG who have not corrected it other than to include in the service schedule "check plenum chamber drains and clear if necessary". This is a joke because it's about half a day's work to do properly (the battery and its tray have to come out). The dealer who supplied and serviced my Superb certainly hasn't done this because the blue anti-corrosion lacquer on the battery terminals is undisturbed.

This job must be done however - especially if you park under trees. As well as clearing the plenum drains under the battery and servo, it is necessary to carefully inspect the pollen filter housing seal to the car body - these are rubbish. I believe there is a VAG retrofit involving sealing strip of some kind - a VW agent would probably know.

Finally, under the passenger side carpets near the CCM are some very poor joints in the wiring loom which corrode. This is because the joints involved are permanently live and live in a damp place - VAG engineers don't understand the laws of electrolytic corrosion. As well as keeping everything absolutely dry, I coat these joints with vaseline and inspect them each year.

These cars can be reliable and very long-lived if you address the VAG **** ups.

rotodiesel.

Having recently purchased a 130PD superb, I think this is something I need to check. There is evidence that the vehicle has accumulated leaf fall so I will be checking the above. No electrical problems in respect to interior lighting so maybe all is well.

Thanks for useful advice roto....

As suggested above, I would be looking at these issues of water ingress in my recently purchased Superb. However, I was too late. Given the copious quantities of rain suffered in the recent fortnight, it therefore comes as no suprise to find the car misting up during the day when sat in sunshine. Further investigation found carpets very wet under the floor mats in the driver's and front passenger's foot wells :(.

So the weekend saw me stripping out the battery and tray, pollen filter house and other bits. However as with other Skodas, the windscreen wiper arms were stuck tight to the spindles despite WD40, hammer, gentle levering and even a little bit of heat from a hot air gun . Nevertheless I worked around this issue to haul the battery out (bleeding heavy trying to straight lift this out of the centre of a large car when you're a handful of inches short of 6 foot ).

Anyhow, I found the problem areas described above, two drain plugs in the bottom of the chamber completely silted up leaving half inch of water standing despite been driven around every day and no rain for several days earlier. To me the rubber plugs are a silly design with their star-shaped ends just asking to block up. Then there was the pollen filter. Next to the plastic moulding making up the intake to the interior fan was a build up of debris allowing water to overflow above the intake seal height and then make its way inside the car.

I have upturned the carpet in the front footwell to some extent (I had no idea the actual floor plan was a good 3" below the carpet!:eek:). Anyhow to finish the job, I've left a dehumidifer running in the car and will do for the rest of the week, as well as visit the local parts counter for a new pollen filter housing seal.

I have found water on top of my passenger side floor mat this morning but the carpets etc are bone dry!! Any ideas?

Do any service schedules actually check these drains or is it purely something that the owner should check. Mine is going in for a service shortly so is it worth me getting them to check or should they be doing it anyway?

If you look in the service book, checking the plenum drains is in the service schedule.

Given the time it takes to do this properly, I can't see any VAG agent doing this - on my car they didn't even do the easy jobs.

rotodiesel.

If it is in the sevice schedule then I will get them to check, but this raises another question, are there any tell tale signs that they have done the work, or signs that they haven't for that matter!

Read my post above. VAG coat the battery terminals with blue anti-corrosion lacquer. If there's an unbroken film on the terminal post and clamp, the battery has never been out therefore the drains have not been properly checked.

My Superb had an unbroken film of blue lacquer on both battery terminals. Thanks, Rainworth Motors.

rotodiesel.

Rainworth??? That's where I would have taken mine!!! I did buy it from them in the first place. I often go see my parents in Leeds so might take it to DM Keith up there, I often let them do my services since I don't really trust Rainworth.

As this seems to be one of the major problems with the Superb it would be good if someone could post a topic detailing, with pictures, how to check this problem and solve it......then it would be useful to make the thread a sticky......

Try this: :: .:: WeirdLittleBiscuit dot Com ::. .:: Fixing Passat Leak ::. ::

rotodiesel.

Try this: :: .:: WeirdLittleBiscuit dot Com ::. .:: Fixing Passat Leak ::. ::

rotodiesel.

Top post!!!!

Try this: :: .:: WeirdLittleBiscuit dot Com ::. .:: Fixing Passat Leak ::. ::

rotodiesel.

Thanks, i knew i had read it somewhere!

That's exactly how it looked to me, although I had ½" of water sitting in the bottom of my plenum chamber.

So far the dehumidifier (running now for about 36h constant) has removed about 1½ litres of water from the interior!

You can see why I have a rather jaundiced view of my Superb. If the machine does what you want (mine does) then on the face of it, it's a good secondhand buy - there is little to touch it.

The reality is a bit different. VAG are selling an old B5.5 stretched Passat with a low rent badge on it. OK. The B5.5 has some serious design problems which they have not corrected on the rebadged model. Not OK.

The icing on the cake is that in my experience the VAG dealers are technically incompetent and dishonest. If you pay a dealer to service your VAG car you expect them to at least do what it says in the book. My observations are that the dealers don't do this and are therefore incompetent crooks.

The smart move is to find out the weak points of your "bargain" car and address them carefully. Luckily, the Superb weak points are fixable (otherwise I wouldn't have bought one). Use the Internet to find them and either sort them out yourself, or find an intelligent and honest independent garage (they do exist) to sort these things out for you.

When you have effectively re-written the service schedule and found somewhere to have it maintained, the Superb can give excellent long term service - as the taxi trade knows.

rotodiesel.

I think the crucial point here is if you remove the plastic cover to get to the pollen filter you must line it up exactly right.

The battery is a nightmare even for a 6ft bloke like me, a complete afterthought .

I had the lot out the other week, and the drains were dry and clear, worth checking though just for POM.

Its only a 20 minute job, but I agree its unlikely a VW agent will do this unless there is evidence of standing water...

Pretty poor design. There is a rubber collar that makes a shelf for gunk to accumulate on. I suppose you could remove the grommet but it must be there for a reason - most likely to stop road spray or something... I'll leave it to you to decide on the lesser of the 2 evils.

look at my SUPERB in classifieds 55 reg, 130 bhp 1.9tdi auto elegance special edition 100.make me an offer! robert..