wet feet

[wilcoblue]

I have just recently bought a used seat toledo , the first wet day I discovered that both footwells in the passengers side where soaking wet. I set about investigating this and could not find where the fault was I turned a hose on that side of the car but there was no sign of water coming in either from the doors or bulkhead. does anyone know if it is possible for water to get in from the road via badly sealed bungs or grommets.

[adamss24]

Check the drains under the battery and master cylinder and remove any leaves that lay in there...Also, check that the windows are fully closed as well.

[angel18082005]

clear out any drainage channels - check your manual for where these are.

do you have a sun roof or aerial hole?

is the headlining wet?

[wilcoblue]

thanks everybody for your suggestions. The fact is I made a wrong diagnosis in the first place, it turned out to be a perished inner panel seal on the door. It seems this is a common fault with the toledo.

[angel18082005]

oh well glad you got it sorted out anyway :biglaugh:

[Mafu]

Welcome to the damp toledo owners club!!

I had the same bother with mine, Again as you say its the door. Im suprised I havent had more bother with mine at the minute because I've been doing some fording through some of these floods in england. Anyone know iif theres a snorkel kit available for toledos?!!!!!

[angel18082005]

Welcome to the damp toledo owners club!!

I had the same bother with mine, Again as you say its the door. Im suprised I havent had more bother with mine at the minute because I've been doing some fording through some of these floods in england. Anyone know iif theres a snorkel kit available for toledos?!!!!!

well... you can find anything on ebay nowadays!

[toledotourer]

The problem may not be as simply diagnosed as you think. Yes it may be seals, and it is worth cleaning out debris from under the battery; however the most common fault is the pollen filter housing. This a major problem with VAG vehicles; I have friends with Fabias, Passats, etc who have experienced the same thing and this was the problem. I spent around £100 having a new housing and pollen filter fitted ( it had got soaked) and had the housing sealed with mastic. Since then I have experienced no problems, even when driving through the torrential rain last Friday west along the M3:approve:

[djenki21]

I'm also a long-time member of the damp-footed Toledo owner's club. :(

I've had my Toledo since 2003 and it has had this problem to an increasing degree for about two years. (I know! I shoulda ditched it before now!)

Obviously it's been particularly bad during the past fortnight, but now it's stopped raining and I've dried the floor out with a bilge-pump I want to fix it for good.

I've seen a number of theories regarding the most likely cause of the water ingress. I've tried playing a hose on the door exterior with the internal door panel off, but I saw no water anywhere. Having said that, when I took the door panel off, the base of it - near the main speaker - was damp. :confused: Also tried playing a hose on the windscreen, but still no evidence.

Does anyone know what is the best way to diagnose each of the possible faults?

[toledotourer]

I took my Toledo to the Seat dealer in Windsor. They kept the car for 2 days, ran water over it everywhere and came up with the same diagnosis I had given them when I took it in; this was based on friends' experience. Since then no more wet feet, so I guess in my case the problem was fixed. I can't guarantee it's the same problem for everyone, but at the end of the day I think it's wise to leave it to the professionals.

[tank 55]

I have read with interest all the comments about our wet cars :( this was something I had not heard of before I got my car. I will be investigating all the ideas but not sure where to find some of them (pollen filter), is there a car manual as I have not seen any in the shops :confused: or are these for a dealer to sort out, I don't want to pull the car apart without some idea how to put it back again... & I have a few other small jobs I want to do as well....

[djenki21]

The Seat Club of Finland has posted a Powerpoint (http://scf.fi/filet/leaks.ppt) describing what appears to be a Seat Service Guide for Toledos and Leons with Water Ingress problems. Unfortunately, I can't read any of the posts on the forum, so i can't see where it came from!


It doesn't appear to give a diagnosis, but simply recommends both procedures (notches in the outer weather door seal and replacing the inner ancillaries door sealer.)

If I get round to trying it I'll see if I can post the outcome here.

[Mafu]

Think ive finally sorted the problem out. In the drivers door sill theres a rubber seal that should lie over the plastic trim into the footwell. Testing with kitchen paper, and a karcher power hose, showed this to be the place where water was getting in. In the end I pumped a bead of silicon along this seal where the rubber was starting to lift. In the few weeks since doing this theres been no bother since despite some heavy rain. Happy Days!

[lu and phil]

Having spent hours searching through the winterweb for info on the Toledo I was aware of this problem prior to my purchase of an 01 plate... and I was smugly driving around all dry footed like...
And then yesterday, follwing bucketloads of rain, as I was sat for 2 hours making a 4.3 mile drive home from work, I spotted it... One lonesome drip - dripping down the carpet into the footwell on the passenger side. I have printed out the Powerpoint mentioned in djenki21's post (thank you djenki21 and everyone else who has posted) and I shall give it a go... Fingers, or should I say Toes? crossed
I'm so glad that forums like this exist where people take the time to share information... Thanks for making the world a better place :biglaugh:

[blaidd_bach]

Ah, the old indoor swimming pool trick.
Unfortunately my '99 Toledo 1.8 20 V decided to spring a leak during the early and mid part of last year in both rear passenger footwells. Tell tale signs of serious condensation in the rear windows prompted me to have a look and found the carpets to be completely soaked. :confused:
Now, I decided to do the right thing and take it along to a Seat garage (Watford) & pay an obscene amount for someone to hose the thing down. Numerous times as it happened. Eventually a fault was found with the left front door panel seal, which was replaced. Now this even seemed strange to me (front / rear thing) and I was told that there is a channel underneath the carpets and water was runnign from the front of the car to the back. I will admit to being more than a little sceptical but as I was not of the mind to pull out the carpets to check so I trusted what they said.

I then noticed condensation at the front of the car & found my front carpets to be soaked. I was convinced someone was breaking into the car & watering it in the night!.:aargh4:
So back I went, and paid even more obscene amounts of money only to be told that there was water coming in through both of the rear door panel seals and it was this water that was running through into the front footwells.
So, both rear door seals were replaced and away we went again.

You can get the picture I'm sure.:(

Anyway, after another 2 visits and not entirely nice one's the problem seemed to be largely fixed, with no water even after a wet weekend in Wales.

Now for the science bit. On a recent trip to Coupers in St Albans (very nice people) the nice young lady in the service department commented on what good condition the car was in & this prompted me to divulge my water problem. She then gave me some words of wisdom which I will never, ever forget.

Beneath each door are a set of holes. These holes allow water which runs down the windows and into the door, to escape out of the bottom. But, these holes can become blocked especially if the doors aren't opened regularly, such as rear doors.
If they become blocked, water builds up and can leak out of other areas in the doors.

If they should become blocked, thin wire can be inserted to unblock. Simple.
Alternatively, regularly open rear or passenger doors (whichever don't get regularly used) especially after rain to allow them to drain.

Whilt I understand lessons are to be learned, I wish they didn't have to be expensive ones!!!.:(

[Mafu]

Thats a good point about those drain holes, I'll have to check those tomorrow!!

I think I'll run another wee bead of silicon around the seals as well!!

Ive noticed theres water dripping down the other footwell instead of the drivers door but i cant really complain as theres over a hundred thousand miles on her now. (I bought her in april with 81 k !!) and thats the only problem, apart from a fan belt snapping.

Happy new year to all by the way

[toledoavi]

I experienced the same problem, and after being quoted a fortune by an approved seat dealer to renew 3 out of 4 door seals I took the car to my local (and reliable) garage who had an innovative (and far cheaper) solution. They removed a couple of grommets from under the car so all the water ran out and would drain off in future. While this may not get to the root of the problem I have not had any wet footwells since so it is well worth considering.

[Mafu]

Speaking of those grommets, when I was getting the car serviced by my uncle, we put it over the pit and noticed that three of the four grommets were missing and the fourth had been pushed up. The last owner must've mounted a kerb and pushed up the jacking point on the underside, upsetting the grommits. These have been replaced and the only bother now is the odd trickle of water in thr seals when theres heavy rain.