Water sloshing around somewhere

[bowen]

Hello,

I have a wet driver footwell and I hate it.

I have checked;
Pollen filter
Grommits under servo and battery
heater matrix

These are all dry.

I notice when I brake I hear water rushing forwards. Where could it be hiding to?

Thanks,

 

[quattrojames]

Seal around the ECU box?

 

[Mike.M]

Odd, but would check as mentioned above the ecu case

 

[saxonblue]

yep. i second that
although if the good old plenums have been acting up, it can take a while for water to build up, and it can sloch around everywhere

 

[bowen]

I'll take a look. This may sound daft but it sounds like its in the door?

 

[Mike.M]

Could be in the door if the drain holes are blocked. Open the door and there is usually a couple of slits at the base of the door and these sometimes block up....get something narrow and poke the hole to clear them.

 

[bowen]

thanks mate will give this a go.

You dont know where exactly i should be looking do you? (pic perhaps?)

 

[Mike.M]

Look under the door.....hands and knees job LOL and look for some hole and poke them clear.

 

[Mike.M]

A friend had a blocked door drain and it filed up so much water was coming through the speaker.

 

[bowen]

Nope none there.

Jat checked again, certainly not under the brake servo or battery.

 

[AudiLeon]

Our A6 has just had this, it was in the rear footwell about 2inch deep. Ouch!!

 

[DALE_AVANT]

I'll take a look. This may sound daft but it sounds like its in the door?

Could it be the door sills?

 

[bowen]

OK, latest.

I sat in the car whilst the missus poured a bucket of water over the windscreen and bonnet. The plenum chamber is running freely, I knew this anyway as I had seen it was bone dry.

I started to lose my temper and took some of the trim off and looked under the carpet, boom two inches of water with wires and important looking things drowning in water. Not good.

More inspection. I noticed that the seal around the car (this is hard to explain) not the seal around the car's door but the car had a tiny tear in it. I am able to squeeze it, like a spot and water shoots 4 inches into the air!

I will get this seal replaced, part number anyone? I will also look into the ecu box leaking.

Thanks again,

A very wet footed Bowen

 

[bowen]

Update.

Removed the ecu and the surrounding box, dry as a bone so that eliminates that.

I hired a karcher suction vac, only 8 litres under the drivers footwell!

My last hope is the inner door seal that another member has mentioned on here.

Any other ideas? Please help! I know wear armbands to drive.
Cheers!

 

[Redski]

Update.

Removed the ecu and the surrounding box, dry as a bone so that eliminates that.

I hired a karcher suction vac, only 8 litres under the drivers footwell!

My last hope is the inner door seal that another member has mentioned on here.

Any other ideas? Please help! I know wear armbands to drive.
Cheers!

Hi, hope you're well.

I'm experiencing the exact same problem ... almost, and it's driving me nuts trying to deduce where it's ingressing from.

So, I really need your help guys - please !

I have a '56 plate A4 Cabriolet S-Line and recently I started to see water come out the front of the car when I reversed off the driveway after a night when it's rained. It seems as though it was coming out the front of the door sills, on the outside of the car by the front wheel arches.

This has now progressively got worse and I can hear sloshing every time it's rained. When I reverse off the driveway, the water isn't dumping out straight away now, and only seems to become less of a slosh after driving for a while but never completely stops making the noise and it's really frustrating.

I've checked under the battery, I've checked under the brake servo and these are clear and no debris or water in sight.

The water definitely seems to be moving back and forth in the sill I think ?

I jacked the car up and got underneath it, and all the holes which seemed like drainage holes to me felt clear.

I'm really at a loss here and don't want to stump up £72 for Audi's half hour assessment, and they then call back to say they couldn't diagnose it in the half hours labour time and I need to pay £72 for another half an hour and then extra on top for the repair.

Were you able to find the issue with yours ?

Any help greatly appreciated !

 

[AndyMac]

I would first remove the grommets under the battery/servo. Just because they appear clear doesn't mean they aren't struggling when there's a downpour, and we've had some pretty big downpours recently. I unblocked mine, cleared out 5 litres of carpet water dried out the carpet etc etc only then to find 6 months later they were blocked again with just silt (like fine sand) - they are designed to fail, get rid of them!

 

[Redski]

I would first remove the grommets under the battery/servo. Just because they appear clear doesn't mean they aren't struggling when there's a downpour, and we've had some pretty big downpours recently. I unblocked mine, cleared out 5 litres of carpet water dried out the carpet etc etc only then to find 6 months later they were blocked again with just silt (like fine sand) - they are designed to fail, get rid of them!

Thanks for the advices Andy, appreciated.

If this was the issue (I'm not sure it is as I poked a long screwdriver through & they were clear) where would the water sit & slosh around once its ingressed ?

i can't work out how to drain what I can hear in the car already and there's definitely no water under the battery & brake servo.

also, is there an easier way to access / clear these without the palava of removing the battery ?

thanks

 

[atex949]

porbably the dorr opening seal, not on the door itself but on the body. In cross section that seal looks like two rings one large and the other small. The small one connects all the way up to the top of the windscreen in the corner where the roof joins it to drain water from the top of roof and windscreen. Ithas one or two holes in it to let the water out at the base of the door opening. The larger ring is just a buffer to resist the door when you shut it and seal generally. This larger ring can fill with water as it has a huge hole in it half wy up the hinge side of the door opening (to let air out when door closes) but you can' see this hole unless you take the footwell kicker plate off (pings off). If you take off the horizontal piece of plastic along the door opening sill (lever up) and you can get at the rubber seal better. The problem is that if this larger ring fills with water there is no where for it to go. In my case the water backed up came out of the hole half way up and tracked inside over the sill. as mentioned there are a couple of holes already in the seal for (the smaller ring) all I did was poke a pointed implement, scredriver would probably do, into these holes to clean them out but also to break through into the larger ring behind (You cant see it but truist me its there, but dont go through completely through both sides)). You need to make a decent sized hole or tear, when I did this a load of water came out of the larger seal and I never had the problem again. As I said, what happens is the the larger ring fills up with water from that hole by the hinge I mentioned, backs up and then leaks under the kicker trim over the horizontal piece into the footwell. I guess it happens on sopme cars and depends heavily how the trim is located to let the water track inside. I did both doors just to make sure but it was my passenger side that had the problem. I found out by getting my wife to hose the car roof while I was inside and saw a very small line of water trickle down the footwell horizontal trim by the left kicker plate. let me know if this solevs your problem . PM me for a phone number as this would be much easier to explain if we were talking with a car in front of us. no pics sorry

 

[Redski]

porbably the dorr opening seal, not on the door itself but on the body. In cross section that seal looks like two rings one large and the other small. The small one connects all the way up to the top of the windscreen in the corner where the roof joins it to drain water from the top of roof and windscreen. Ithas one or two holes in it to let the water out at the base of the door opening. The larger ring is just a buffer to resist the door when you shut it and seal generally. This larger ring can fill with water as it has a huge hole in it half wy up the hinge side of the door opening (to let air out when door closes) but you can' see this hole unless you take the footwell kicker plate off (pings off). If you take off the horizontal piece of plastic along the door opening sill (lever up) and you can get at the rubber seal better. The problem is that if this larger ring fills with water there is no where for it to go. In my case the water backed up came out of the hole half way up and tracked inside over the sill. as mentioned there are a couple of holes already in the seal for (the smaller ring) all I did was poke a pointed implement, scredriver would probably do, into these holes to clean them out but also to break through into the larger ring behind (You cant see it but truist me its there, but dont go through completely through both sides)). You need to make a decent sized hole or tear, when I did this a load of water came out of the larger seal and I never had the problem again. As I said, what happens is the the larger ring fills up with water from that hole by the hinge I mentioned, backs up and then leaks under the kicker trim over the horizontal piece into the footwell. I guess it happens on sopme cars and depends heavily how the trim is located to let the water track inside. I did both doors just to make sure but it was my passenger side that had the problem. I found out by getting my wife to hose the car roof while I was inside and saw a very small line of water trickle down the footwell horizontal trim by the left kicker plate. let me know if this solevs your problem . PM me for a phone number as this would be much easier to explain if we were talking with a car in front of us. no pics sorry

Wow, thank you so much for this suggestion - I need to check this out.

Please PM me your number so I can call u when it's convenient on Saturday to look into how I do this.

thanks for all this help.

 

[Redski]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the help & suggestions.

Im just updating this thread, now the issue has been resolved - to help anyone else experiencing the same issue because I couldn't find an answer on the net, or where I did find a thread with the same issue, it hadnt been updated with the resolution of the issue.

So, on my B7 A4 cabriolet, I had water sloshing back & forth in the door sills when I accelerated & braked.

I checked under the battery & brake servo drains before posting here and both plenium chamber drains were dry & clear.

Audi successfully diagnosed the issue as a failed door seal.

Water was getting in, and sitting in the door sills as the drain holes had become clogged with leaves and sludge.

Door seal replaced, drain holes cleared and cleaned ... and my car no longer sounds like the Titanic !

Thanks to all.

 

[fast360f1]

hi I have the same problem , did uyou get it fix ? what did you do? thanks

 

[Redski]

Audi successfully diagnosed the issue as a failed door seal.

Water was getting in, and sitting in the door sills as the drain holes had become clogged with leaves and sludge.

Door seal replaced, drain holes cleared and cleaned ... and my car no longer sounds like the Titanic !

Thanks to all.

^ This.

 

[fast360f1]

how did you fix urs?

 

[fast360f1]

porbably the dorr opening seal, not on the door itself but on the body. In cross section that seal looks like two rings one large and the other small. The small one connects all the way up to the top of the windscreen in the corner where the roof joins it to drain water from the top of roof and windscreen. Ithas one or two holes in it to let the water out at the base of the door opening. The larger ring is just a buffer to resist the door when you shut it and seal generally. This larger ring can fill with water as it has a huge hole in it half wy up the hinge side of the door opening (to let air out when door closes) but you can' see this hole unless you take the footwell kicker plate off (pings off). If you take off the horizontal piece of plastic along the door opening sill (lever up) and you can get at the rubber seal better. The problem is that if this larger ring fills with water there is no where for it to go. In my case the water backed up came out of the hole half way up and tracked inside over the sill. as mentioned there are a couple of holes already in the seal for (the smaller ring) all I did was poke a pointed implement, scredriver would probably do, into these holes to clean them out but also to break through into the larger ring behind (You cant see it but truist me its there, but dont go through completely through both sides)). You need to make a decent sized hole or tear, when I did this a load of water came out of the larger seal and I never had the problem again. As I said, what happens is the the larger ring fills up with water from that hole by the hinge I mentioned, backs up and then leaks under the kicker trim over the horizontal piece into the footwell. I guess it happens on sopme cars and depends heavily how the trim is located to let the water track inside. I did both doors just to make sure but it was my passenger side that had the problem. I found out by getting my wife to hose the car roof while I was inside and saw a very small line of water trickle down the footwell horizontal trim by the left kicker plate. let me know if this solevs your problem . PM me for a phone number as this would be much easier to explain if we were talking with a car in front of us. no pics sorry

how did you fix it?

 

[Redski]

As per my 2 posts above now ... I took the car to my local Audi dealership - they diagnosed the issue and replaced the Door Seal, drain holes cleared and cleaned and it fixed the issue.

I can't say anymore than that - that's what mine was !

 

[fast360f1]

how did you fix it?

surround wetherstripping have many factory holes by the door hinge, and for some reason the holes leak under the surround weatherstripping by the ecu and the back driver seat .I took the surround weatherstripping off and use weatherstripping adhesive to cover the factory draining holes under the weatherstrip (there is 2 drain holes under the weatherstrip and 2 large openings close to the convertible top) . after the adhesive is dry test it and the water is no longer is getting under the weatherstrip. there is a 3rd drain hole but this one drain water by the door hinge out of the weatherstrip.