[Water Leaking In] Common Areas of Concern

[T Berk <tberk@mindspring.com>]

Here are my most common early VW leak prone areas;

1. Windshield. Look for dried mineral tracks left behind by evaporation,
easy to spot against the black rubber. I could repost my detailed fix
for this but the short answer is to insert the silicon sealant (black)
UNDER the lip of the gasket and run a bead all the way around, letting
excess squeeze out. Do both gasket to body and gasket to glass
circumferences. Don't skimp, a bubble or gap out of sight will fail the
fix. The surplus can be removed before it sets up.

2. Inner Door liner, or lack thereof. The plastic liner between the door
panel and the door shell redirects the water to the drain holes in the
bottom edge of the door. Reseal or replace with any solid sheet PVC or
whatever. Bottom edge hangs down inside the door shell, I believe. 

3. Rain Tray Drainage Tubes Blocked. In the Engine compartment are two
drain tubes to each side, near the wiper linkage, etc. Kept free of
leaves and such aids to preventing backed up water flowing in the fresh
air intake, and into the dash.

3b. Rain Tray Plastic Shield cracked. Found this is chronic with hot
engine bays and older cars. Quick solution has been to recondition the
things from underneath with black gaffers tape. (Almost like Duct tape
but not as 'tacky'.) Really became evident how much these things work
when I left it out of the A2 Jetta. Pools and pools of water on the
passenger's side, were the fan intake is.

4. Rear Hatch Seal. Like all things flexible they get less so with age
and ozone. No OEM replacements readily available AFAIK, Artistic black
Silicon sealant, applied with plastic wrap as a temp 'Don't seal to this
side' (removed after semi curing), ?????. No great solution yet , still
in development.

5. Real Tail light seals? Never seen this one but others have, remove,
silicon it up, reattach and clear excess with a popsicle stick for a
proud finish.

hth,
TBerk

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