Water leak into footwell - dodgy seal info and DIY repair guide (Image links dead)

B1rdy

Active Member
Jan 30, 2012
213
0
North West England
I have read more now (almost every page) and see that most of you recommend butyl for seal.
question 6 or 10mm?

Can I order butyl from my vag dealer?
in that case, anyone has the part numbers? (butyl and door clips)
they should be able to find the door clips with my licence plate but the butyl i doubt they know what it is. :-(

must say I wonder if my LCR 2004 has the butyl seal already or when did seat change to that?

My LCR is a 54 reg and doesn't leak I'm even with the recent downpours. However I reckon a previous owner may have done them as I'm never normally that lucky with cars that I should have one that doesn't leak in. My last LCR on a 54 was terrible. In fact, there were 'pairs' of various animals in the footwells
 

Kimme

Guest
My LCR is a 54 reg and doesn't leak I'm even with the recent downpours. However I reckon a previous owner may have done them as I'm never normally that lucky with cars that I should have one that doesn't leak in. My last LCR on a 54 was terrible. In fact, there were 'pairs' of various animals in the footwells

I dont really understand what 54 reg means?

which year is a 54 reg produced?
 

Kimme

Guest
What cleaner should I use to remove old seal?

don´t want to damage the paintwork!
 

Kimme

Guest
I called my local vag dealer and asked them to order the butyl with item nr that someone in this thread was nice to share (thanks) AKD49701004R10.
Price in Sweden 51 euro.

I am a bit worried as he said that its only 2mm thick?
he was alittle unsure if 2mm was referring to width or thickness of the butyl.
However, the dealers garage use this for the Golf 5 to seal the doors so maybe it can work.

Found one on ebay aswell (8X8mm.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BOLT-ON-PAN..._Body_Shop_Supplies_Paint&hash=item33578589f8

But with that one I´m alittle worried that its going to be a tight fit with 8x8mm.

Which one would you choose?

one another important question.
on which part should I mount the butyl?
on the carrier plate that must be loosend or on the actual door?

Thanks in advance!

(sorry for all the questions)
 

zerotwo7

Guest
Quality guide i've got leaky doors currently and going to try and sort this weekend. Must easier when you got something to go off though! :D
 

Kimme

Guest
The butyl and door clips still hadn´t come to my local vag dealer yesterday?!
Of course this is important to fix asap, so I actually drove to the local VOLVO dealer
and bought the butyl from them.
They only had one model “a round one” D= 7-8mm. (which worked perfect)

Thanks to this great guide it really was a piece of cake to sort this myself.

I was lucky because not a single door clip was broken so I could put everything back together
today without waiting on my new clips from vag.

The car is now standing at dads work with 2 car heaters to completely dry out.

Hopefully the car is going to be dry from now on!

I also made drain holes in the bottom rubber seal/strip under the doors.
There are drain holes but only in the upper layer of the rubber seal/strip.
Because I believe that’s the reason that the original seal behind the door carrier fails.
It seems that as long as the doors are closed no water can run out, which means
that until you open the door water is building up inside the door.

I have checked many other cars this week and looked how they solved the drain in the doors
and not a single one have this double seal/strip layer with no drain holes all the way trough.
(only one other car had a seal/strip under the door at all)

So I can´t see any disadvantages with this modification.

Best regards

Kim
 

explodingcarrot

Active Member
Jul 1, 2012
17
0
Seriously??

I enquired with the stealer, just to see what the response would be. I received an extensive reply with a hefty pricetag :headhurt: :

Unfortunately with this model/year of vehicle water ingress is not as simple as a door seal.

The most common issue with these are the actual door cartridge seals, foam strips behind the door panel these require removal of all four door trim panels, door glass units, and window control cartridges to access the seals, then you have to scrape them off to replace them with a butyl tape. Also there have been cases where there has been water ingress through the front bulkhead panels in two places, one on either side.

The repair as regards to materials is very cheap, with regards to labour is very intense.

If you can see/feel water on the tops of the carpets, this means you have approx 25mm of water below them as that is the thickness of the carpet/underfelt.

The only option in this case, and certainly the only repair we would take on is to do the complete repair once to ensure there are no further leaks.

This consists of us removing all the interior coverings, seats, trims, centre console, carpets, underfelts and carrying out water ingress testing, this testing will be done physically and ultrasonically looking for openings to confirm the problem before we carry out modifications to the vehicle.

Once we have replaced the affected seal and sealed up the ingress we then test it all again using the same methods, this testing process takes some 5-6 hours, the stripping/repairing also takes some 5 hours.

Due to the labour intense nature of these repairs and the ages of the vehicles now we cap the repair costs to prevent spiralling cost at £780including VAT, should we find anything seriously wrong with the vehicle other than the ingresses we have seen before e.g. accident damage causing the leaks etc then we would contact you before carrying on with any repairs.
 

explodingcarrot

Active Member
Jul 1, 2012
17
0
After this I went to a local place and they identified the passenger door coming in through the door card seal and said they could fix it with the proper VAG butyl for £60. Went for it and that door is now clean, dry and sorted.
Hooray!

Thing is... this morning the drivers side door sill is wet and puddly. Could it be coming from the leaky seal at the top of the door? I mean the foam seal that runs along the body of the car from the front by the wing mirror over and down to the back of the car?
I can see dribbles from the top that have come from behind the seal and run down the rubber aperture seal and looks to have caused puddles on the door sill.

Doesn't appear to be any ingress from door card on this door.
 

Kimme

Guest
Update:

The car has now been outside in the rain all night to test the new butyl seal and I´m happy
to report that it´s not a single drop if water in the doors sills or in the car either.

I didn´t do the backdoors because on my moms Toledo V5 (2000) the backdoors still doesn´t leak
and hers frontdoors started to leak 3-4 years ago.

How many of you had leak in the backdoors as well?
 

Richy Cupra

Fully paid member
Jul 6, 2011
1,368
0
Essex
I did my door seals last year, and recently im finding water so close to entering the footwell just like it did before i did the seals. Have i done something wrong??
 

Paul B2010

Active Member
Jan 17, 2010
353
0
I did my door seals last year, and recently im finding water so close to entering the footwell just like it did before i did the seals. Have i done something wrong??
I did my drivers side some time ago, and while it's all dried out, I still get water close to kickplate sometimes when I open the drivers door. Heres my findings. Park the car on a level surface, no build up either side. Park the car out side my house, passenger side into the kerb which is a fair slant, there will be a build up on the drivers side, much less than previous mind but still there. Park the car the other way round so the drivers side is in to the kerb, and there will be no build up anywhere. So I think it's partly down to main door seal too. Drivers side being the most used throughout its life. I might see about replacing that too if I ever get wet carpets again.
 

Richy Cupra

Fully paid member
Jul 6, 2011
1,368
0
Essex
I did my drivers side some time ago, and while it's all dried out, I still get water close to kickplate sometimes when I open the drivers door. Heres my findings. Park the car on a level surface, no build up either side. Park the car out side my house, passenger side into the kerb which is a fair slant, there will be a build up on the drivers side, much less than previous mind but still there. Park the car the other way round so the drivers side is in to the kerb, and there will be no build up anywhere. So I think it's partly down to main door seal too. Drivers side being the most used throughout its life. I might see about replacing that too if I ever get wet carpets again.

Im the opposite to you mate :confused: At home my drive is on a slope and it seems to be fine, a little bit of build up but not as much as when i park it on a level surface. Might be worth replacing the main doorseals, but thats gonna take some effort when it finally stops raining!![:@]
 

Dozer360

mk1 Seat Leon 20v T
Jun 1, 2010
1,026
1
southampton
i was going to do all 4 doors today but i only got round to doing one, this is from my RR

todays progress:

as it stopped raining for 30 minutes today i thought i would attempt the leaky door fix now my stuff has arrived from ebay, i thought it would only be a 30 minute job but i took the door card off and was greated by this monstrosity
image9.jpg


im sure its not standard to have that much soundproofing, its all inside the doors as well, the panel was also bodged back in place with what i can only think of as pollyfiller covered with silicon sealant
image7.jpg


image6.jpg


i found out that the speaker is an aftermarket alpine one that has been stuck on a plastic bag, then stuck on a adapter then stuck on the soundproofing then screwed in to the existing speaker holes
image8.jpg


image5.jpg


image4.jpg


image3.jpg


even the tweeter is bodged, im sure its not supposed to look like that, and the cables are all bodged as well
image2.jpg


i have removed as much of the bloody pollyfiller and sealant as i could get at and have replaced it with butyl sealant strip, then i removed the speaker adapter and cleaned all the crap off that and removed some of the soundproofing it was sitting on and stuck it back on with butyl strip and screws.

i think the water was getting in through the soundproofing the speaker adapter was sitting on as half way through cleaning the crap off it started raining again (so it was a mad dash to get the gf's parents garage clear to get the car in there) and all around the bottom of the adapter was wet.

at the moment its all put pack together hopefully properly, but i have masking taped up the window tonight so it has a chance to seal properly, i will take it of tomorrow and it will hopefully be nice and dry on my door seal and carpet after tomorrows almost certain rain.
 

s1eanski

Guest
Excellent explanation, just waiting for tools required from ebay! My poor wet seat:cry:
 

Amcm

Guest
can anyone help me out ive did all my door seals and the water is still laying in the sils when you open the door its getting up over the seals at the door and going into the footwells....i dnt know how the water is getting there as the sides of the door is dry but under the door is wet and so is the bottom of the door cards??
 

Dozer360

mk1 Seat Leon 20v T
Jun 1, 2010
1,026
1
southampton
can anyone help me out ive did all my door seals and the water is still laying in the sils when you open the door its getting up over the seals at the door and going into the footwells....i dnt know how the water is getting there as the sides of the door is dry but under the door is wet and so is the bottom of the door cards??

have you given the rubber strips a wipe?
mine were covered in loads of gunk, and make sure the holes in the bottom of the door are clear, just stick a screwdriver up there and give it a wiggle.
 

Amcm

Guest
Yea I cleaned all the rubber seals and under them .....havnt looked at the holes cause I didn't see any under the door
 

jok0212

Newbie
Mar 18, 2006
90
0
can anyone help me out ive did all my door seals and the water is still laying in the sils when you open the door its getting up over the seals at the door and going into the footwells....i dnt know how the water is getting there as the sides of the door is dry but under the door is wet and so is the bottom of the door cards??

I'm having the exact same problem, sat in the car while having the car hosed down for ten minutes and think I've figuered out the water is actually coming in from the front of the door and running down to the sills and it just builds up and not escaping.
Tho I still haven't figure out why it's doing this. Hopefully someone have the answer to this.
 
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