A4 B6 Convertible rear seal & roof compartment drains

[arran_m]

Hi all,

I have like a few others found a water leak onto the rear passenger seat of my 2003 A4 B6 and seem to have tracked it down to a failed seal on the roof storage box lid but looks like the seal runs the whole length from one side to the other and forms part of the boot/storage compartment seal is this correct and can they be replaced?

ive attached pictures of the seal I’m talking about and assume under there isn’t a drain point which may also be clogged causing this but as I’ve not long had the car I’m not sure if I can part open the roof to look without having to manually close it so hoping you can set me straight on these issues

thanks for you’re help

[gramey]

This has made me curious to know where the drains are as I've recently bought an S4 cabriolet, I did a little searching on the internet and found this on another forum if it's of any use?
I thought I would share my findings so far on this one. I have spent a lot of time today stripping out the trim in the cabriolet roof storage box, and taking out the rear seats and rear side panels. This is what I have found so far, most of it by touch and not sight as even with the side panels off and some sound deadening removed, there is just so much (control boxes, looms etc) in the way that you can't see these drain hoses. There are in fact two drain hoses coming from under the seal of the roof storage compartment, which are located near the joint with the rear side window seals. These fall away over the rear wheel arch towards the front of the car and part way down join together into one hose via a Y-piece. The single hose then continues down the leading edge of the rear wheel arch and then appears to be attached to a spigot on the floor pan, about 6 inches in front of the rear arch and 6 inches in from the sill. The hoses are running clear, however the water appears to then drain onto plastic liners on the underside of the floor pan. How strange! Any way I seem to have found the problem. There is a plastic spigot pop-riveted to the underside of the drain channel, under the seal of the roof storage compartment, to which one of the drain hoses is attached. The seal between the spigot and the body looks like some cheap type of foam that is just perishing, so that when water runs through the spigot, instead of going down the drain hose it runs down the inside of the body as described in my previous post. I have got to try and drill the pop rivets out and make a new seal (not easy with all the folding roof mechanism). It just seems a very cheap way that Audi have made this seal. As mine is probably one of the earlier cabriolets, this may be a problem more and more of you will see. Hope this is useful should you ever need it.

[arran_m]

That’s more information than I had found so thanks for that but wow that’s a lot of work to find a drain hole, I’m used to French cars that have them open to the elements and easy to clear when they fill up with crap but never mind I shall have to deal with German efficiency now.

I just didn’t know if you can part open the roof by the electric button and stop it without needing to manually put it away.

Thanks for what you’ve sent

[gramey]

You can stop the roof at any point you want but it may sag after a while so best to prop it open with a piece of 2 x 2 or something on either side while your're working on it, that's what I did on my previous Mercedes as without the pump running they do lose pressure slowly when in a partially open position.