My Leon's leaking - can you save me £350?

[Pete79]

Hi everyone, I'm new here, as I've recently bought a second-hand 2003 Leon - and I've hit problems already.....

Love the car - BUT, hey, it's been raining hard lately hasn't it!

Yesterday I noticed that in both footwells in the back of the car, puddles of water have appeared on both sides, and most of the carpet underneath the front seats is saturated....

At first I thought maybe the seal around the rear doors could be leaking, but there is no sign of water entering the car that way - my guess is that it's getting in from underneath.

I'm not the greatest when it comes to knowing how to try to fix this kind of thing, and a Seat garage has quoted me £350 to have the car for three days, dry it out, pour water over it for 5 hours, identify the source of the leak, fix it, dry it again and return it to me.

Have any of you guys ever had this problem - and how did you fix it?

Any info would be really appreciated - thanking you all in advance!

Pete

 

[RobM]

Do a search on this forum for leaking car or words to that affect and you'll find loads and loads of posts about it. You're not alone

 

[Pete79]

Thankyou - I will do

 

[RobM]

If all else fails and you still don't find the answer, or you have a specific question that's also unanswered, post it up here and I'm sure someone will know the answer

 

[Pete79]

So it's clearly a real problem with Seat Leons then...?

Oh man, it's starting to smell like dead cats already - and there's more heavy rain to come this weekend.....

 

[RobM]

Not a problem with Leons as such, but an after affect of somebody not putting a seal back on properly as far as I remember. Have you had a service recently?

 

[RobM]

Quick search brought up this: http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44216

Should answer your problems

 

[DPJ]

Pete79, are you saying your front carpets are dry? No sign of water coming down/behind the pedals?

 

[jiege01]

your front door seals are gone, reseal them up and this will fix the wet carpets. best to do both back doors as well just to be sure. water runs into the front and soaks the front carpet, then runs to the lowest point in the car which is the rear footwells, common problem on leons on toledos.

http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44216

 

[Eternal Rage]

Pollen filter might need to be changed too, this can get blacked up and cause similar symptoms...

 

[supracupra01]

this is one subject that seems to be hanging around, welcome to the leaking leon club pete79

 

[Psymonkee]

Just had mine fixed this past week. Too crap at car maintenance to do it myself but:

Pollen Filter seal incorrectly refitted
Leak @ the bulk head letting water in down the backof the pedals (I checked the pedals and found nothing )
Bulk head leak was also running past the fusebox causign the horn to short and fail on a permenant basis

Been drying it out tonight with a fan heater but the rains back on so I've had to stop - smelling better already though

Now I need a Fabia rear wiper

 

[Pete79]

Thanks all for the advice - I literally have it parked up outside my house right now with all the upholstery pulled up and my wife soaking up water with sponges!

It was serviced about 4 weeks ago....... Do you think it could be a problem brought on by a dodgy mechanic?

At this point, it only appears to be the back that's leaking - the front footwells look and feel ok... thanks for the search tips too, really appreciate it!

My wife thinks we need to punch some holes in the rubber seal at the bottom of each door sil - I'm trying to talk her out of it!

 

[Pete79]

haha, thankyou for your warm welcome to the leaky leon club! Fingers crossed, hopefully the worst of the rain has passed? Have any of you guys found that this is only a real problem when it rains continually like it has done lately..? what's it been - nearly a month!!?? Today is the first sunny day I can remember!

 

[Pete79]

hello it's pete's wife... just wondering as we are not mechanic's, how do we dry the upholstery, i've been trying to do it with a hair dryer (which is all we have!) but we can't lift the upholstery much as the runners of the front seats are stopping it... any answers? would we need to see a garage to do this? thanks Bec

 

[m0rk]

when I had a leaky window in my old Ibiza I lifted as much moisture as I could with towels (or kitty litter might do it) then stuck a room heater in the car with a small ventilation gap in the window to let it out.

worked a treat

You will probably want to take the seats out, which is a very easy task

 

[Psymonkee]

Fan heater and an extension cable is what you want

You say the back is wet though:

Is your drive sloped in anyway and your car parked so the rear is at the bottom?

If it was serviced 3 weeks ago check the book and see if they did the pollen filter

 

[Pete79]

It's Pete again! How do you take the seats out? I have had a look, but can't see how to...... should I take the runners out too?

It's parked on the street - a flat road - I'll check my service receipt now, re' the Pollen Filter (fingers crossed)

 

[supracupra01]

do you know of anyone with a DE-humidifier that you can use for a few days, i once bought a car that had been in a flood up to the gearbox tunnel so the full floor pan and carpets were soaked. i left it in for about three days and after that it was pretty dry to the touch and all the foisty smells had gone. Worth a try if you can get one. (just remember to keep emptying the tray on it if you use one)

 

[sargey]

do you have a garage you can park it in? When my old polo coupe leaked (battery clamp rusted) and left an inch deep puddle what i did was park it in the garage, turn the engine on, put the heaters on full whack with direction at the footwells, left a gap in the windows and had a plastic pipe on the exhaust for exhaust gasses and it dried up a treat!