whats the best way to remove the wire that connects to the door pull? gonna redo the doors soon, oh and thanks Lee 
The inside door handle? It just hooks off, its easy to see how it works when you get in there. Just make sure the wee black plastic clip is is the correct place when you put it back on though or you will have to take the door panel off again (which i found out!!!)
What sealant did you use? No disrespect to anyone here but using silicone sealant is possibly the worst thing to use (as silicone fans will find out should they ever need to remove the door carrier).
Go for butyl rubber sealant strip from eBay or your friendly neighbourhood VAG dealer. It's like blu-tak, it keeps water out and never sets so you will always be able to take the door apart should you need to - and it's what VAG started using once they learned their lesson with the crap foam stuff.
Finally, no you don't need to remove your carrier completely to properly seal the door. The VWVortex link has good info especially if your regulator clips have gone, but you really don't need to go through all the pain of completely removing it. Remove all bolts apart from the innermost two at the top, slacken those off so you can pull the carrier away enough to feed the sealant in, and that's about it.
DubSteve
Cant remember the name of it, its some kind of gasket seal in an aerosol type can.
I know what you mean when you say about having to remove the door carrier again. The sealant is coming off in bits and is near impossible to get it all off. I didnt try loosening the top 2 bolts though so will try that rather than taking the whole panel off. Im going down the butyl strip route this time. The sealant is a complete nightmare to get off!
I know what you mean when you say about having to remove the door carrier again. The sealant is coming off in bits and is near impossible to get it all off. I didnt try loosening the top 2 bolts though so will try that rather than taking the whole panel off. Im going down the butyl strip route this time. The sealant is a complete nightmare to get off!
If you got the seal up that far without taking the panel off I should be OK then. Time to invest in some stanley knife blades to get cutting this silicone seal off! Thanks mate
I managed to seal the front door all the way round with the two bolts in place but the rear door carrier wouldn't come out quite as far. Still managed to seal the important section though. Don't forget to wind your windows down before starting
DubSteve
Rip_Uk
Guest
Rauer
Guest
Yup, that's as far as they are supposed to go. The reason you want to wind the windows down is that the window regulators (bit that makes the glass go up and down) are attached to the carrier. With the glass down you will be able to pull the carrier out that bit further to get your sealant in place.
DubSteve
Rauer
Guest
Yup, that's as far as they are supposed to go. The reason you want to wind the windows down is that the window regulators (bit that makes the glass go up and down) are attached to the carrier. With the glass down you will be able to pull the carrier out that bit further to get your sealant in place.
DubSteve
Aaahh wish I'd known that!!
Ordered a roll of the butyl strip last night so should be here for the weekend.
Going to put some carpet protectant on the floor to try and stop the water soaking into it in the meantime
Going to put some carpet protectant on the floor to try and stop the water soaking into it in the meantime
There is a sticky, and it's common as anything, leaks from the front door to the rear footwell too.
Is there a build up of water on the door sills when you open the passenger door? If there is, the seals were not fixed properly.
It could be your pollen filter letting the water in if its running from high up in the footwell
Snews
Guest
6mm or 10mm seal
Hi - what is peoples opinion - either use the 6mm seal or the 10mm. I see on ebay, that the 6mm is cheaper and longer, but need to ensure it will do the job (mind you im guessing anythings better than the current excuse for a seal) - thanks - just a couple of responses would be good.
I'm now officially miserable. Thank you VAG and your horrible door seals that have allowed my carpets to get soaked, and will probably not be fully dry until next summer unless I take them out and put them in my house. Worse than that, on frosty mornings all my windows are frozen on the inside too and I need a towel to mop up all the excess after defrosting them.
Now, the door seals themselves don't look so bad to do, got some some 6mm round butyl cord from eBay which looks ideal (and was cheap too, £7.49 for 8m, inc. delivery) and a pack of trim clips in case I break a few.
On the other hand, removing the carpet looks like a real mission but it looks like the only option for getting the car properly dried out. Having read marshyc's guide (page 9) on doing this I was thinking of following the guide and then leaving the car in its weight-reduced form (i.e. no seats except the driver's) until the carpets were dry again, but would like to know if I'm going to get any problems like airbag warning lights that will need resetting by the local auto sparky - or will it all just work again as before when I put it back together?
Please excuse my ignorance but I'm used to driving a 20 year old Golf in which the most sophisticated component is the CD player...
Cheers, DS
Hi - what is peoples opinion - either use the 6mm seal or the 10mm. I see on ebay, that the 6mm is cheaper and longer, but need to ensure it will do the job (mind you im guessing anythings better than the current excuse for a seal) - thanks - just a couple of responses would be good.
mikeholroyd
Guest
If you leave the passenger seat out, the airbag system will detect this, and put the airbag light on. Leave the back seats out by all means, but for the sake of a few minutes extra work, put the passenger seat back in and plug all the plugs in.
Remember to take the necessary precautions when unpluging and plugging in any component relating to the airbag system.
Mike
Remember to take the necessary precautions when unpluging and plugging in any component relating to the airbag system.
Mike
The 6mm stuff seems to be holding up very well so far. It lashed down last night and my footwells are dry today so it's looking good. I've heard various mentions of the 10mm stuff causing reassembly issues which is why I thought I'd guinea-pig the 6mm stuff. As I mentioned earlier it's cheap too, got mine for £7.49 delivered. There were a couple of non-critical points on the door carrier where I wasn't sure if the 6mm would completely seal it as the gap seemed to be bigger than elsewhere, but all was fine and the car is getting dryer by the day.
Cheers Mike. I decided in the end to let nature run its course and dry out naturally as the weather simply hasn't been good enough for me to start gutting the car. After attacking the bulk of the leak water with towels I've found that leaving the windows open by about 5mm on dry days has helped loads. Obviously the water retained in the channels under the carpet will take longer to shift but the car is no longer the miserable experience it once was.
DubSteve
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