Secret factory feature: Fish pond in the boot

[Mk R]

Was rather surprised to find enough water in the spare tyre well to support aquatic life this week. Turns out Golfs have a built in feature called boot vents which let water stream into your car when washed or in the rain. The kicker is: they've both been replaced once already.

After all the repairs, faults and fixes I've had on my Golf, I think this may finally be the one that turns me off the Golf club for good.

[spellbound]

Really , never heard of that , what mk6 or what .

[Umai Naa!!]

Sunroof?

[jets]

Turns out Golfs have a built in feature called boot vents which let water stream into your car when washed or in the rain.

Who told you that Rubbish? I've had a Mk5 for over 11 years & NEVER had that & NEVER heard of it.

[Umai Naa!!]

It's a depressurisation vent, so the doors shut properly.

I've seen some water leaks in my 15+ years in the game, and none were caused by that.

I'd be looking elsewhere for the source. Tail lights, additional wiring (park sensors, towbar wring, etc), perhaps a lost grommet?

[sparkey_18]

you will find evey car has them, so you can shut the doors!

My Mark 6 has never done this. Has yours been in a rear end accident before?

I had a mazda 3 hatch back many years ago which was rear ended, Post accident the spare tyre well would fill with water everytime i washed it or it would rain. Nobody could fix it so I sold it.

[Guest001]

you will find evey car has them, so you can shut the doors!

My Mark 6 has never done this. Has yours been in a rear end accident before?

I had a mazda 3 hatch back many years ago which was rear ended, Post accident the spare tyre well would fill with water everytime i washed it or it would rain. Nobody could fix it so I sold it.
Ill second that. Had a 323 that had been punched up the back and they never got the hatch back to correct shape, also a Focus that would fill the spare tyre well in a decent rain Same reason.

[Transporter]

Was rather surprised to find enough water in the spare tyre well to support aquatic life this week. Turns out Golfs have a built in feature called boot vents which let water stream into your car when washed or in the rain. The kicker is: they've both been replaced once already.

After all the repairs, faults and fixes I've had on my Golf, I think this may finally be the one that turns me off the Golf club for good.

Was the car in the crash shop?
What repairs were done to it?

[Mk R]

It's a Mk 6 1.4 twin charger. Never had rear end body or panel damage. The boot vent seals perished at the top corners and the cracks let the water run down inside. I've got two new vents ordered and will pull the rear bumper off this coming week. I'm going to seal those buggers in place with some windscreen adhesive so they never fail again.

I double checked it slowly pouring a bottle of water down the outside side of the boot seal above the rear lights, flowed down the inside of the vent and into the boot. The way the boot frame drains it passes every drop of water over the tail light cluster seal and the boot vent seal.

[Mk R]

Nope, only damage to it was front left door at low speed in a parking lot so I doubt it was that. Perhaps it was some of the super hot days this summer that did the seals in. It was in the western nsw heat over 40 a bit this year. The vent seals seem to be harder than most of the other rubber and plastics on the car.

The rear right one had been replaced before by the dealer so perhaps it wasn't installed correctly. The left side vent is original and leaked much less than the right. Both leaks were no doubt exacerbated by the torrential rain this month in Sydney.

[minke]

Nope, only damage to it was front left door at low speed in a parking lot so I doubt it was that. Perhaps it was some of the super hot days this summer that did the seals in. It was in the western nsw heat over 40 a bit this year. The vent seals seem to be harder than most of the other rubber and plastics on the car.

The rear right one had been replaced before by the dealer so perhaps it wasn't installed correctly. The left side vent is original and leaked much less than the right. Both leaks were no doubt exacerbated by the torrential rain this month in Sydney.

Friend's GTi (2010) early on blew an ECU. By the time it got to the dealer the 'culprit' has disappeared or really dried up. After the second ECU blew up the dealer had had a few others and it turned out that a number of the GTIs with a sunroof didn't have the drain pipe connected and the water was running down the a-pillar into the drivers foot well.

Maybe there are drain pipes front and rear and the rear is going down the c-pillar into the boot?

[Mk R]

Friend's GTi (2010) early on blew an ECU. By the time it got to the dealer the 'culprit' has disappeared or really dried up. After the second ECU blew up the dealer had had a few others and it turned out that a number of the GTIs with a sunroof didn't have the drain pipe connected and the water was running down the a-pillar into the drivers foot well.

Maybe there are drain pipes front and rear and the rear is going down the c-pillar into the boot?

That's interesting. Well I guess i'll find out. I'm almost certain it's exclusively related to the vents as everything above them appears and feels dry when water is run from the roof.

[Lucas_R]

Ive had 2x Mk6's over a period of about 6-7 years now and none of them have leaked. All cars have the flaps as others have mentioned.

Sounds like you need a new rear rubber seal for the hatch.

[duck]

I have same issue but car was in a rear ender. Sometimes tail light fills with water too. After that i got ponds, before that no ponds.

[Lucas_R]

Friend's GTi (2010) early on blew an ECU. By the time it got to the dealer the 'culprit' has disappeared or really dried up. After the second ECU blew up the dealer had had a few others and it turned out that a number of the GTIs with a sunroof didn't have the drain pipe connected and the water was running down the a-pillar into the drivers foot well.

Maybe there are drain pipes front and rear and the rear is going down the c-pillar into the boot?

Funny you mention that - my friends Mk5 GTI (which he has since sold) had an issue where water would get into the cabin whenever it rained or he washed the car. We thought it would be the sunroof but could never pinpoint exactly where the issue came from. A while after this was discovered, his ECU died out of the blue one day after he washed the car.......i bet this is what happened.

[minke]

Funny you mention that - my friends Mk5 GTI (which he has since sold) had an issue where water would get into the cabin whenever it rained or he washed the car. We thought it would be the sunroof but could never pinpoint exactly where the issue came from. A while after this was discovered, his ECU died out of the blue one day after he washed the car.......i bet this is what happened.

Yea. the ECU is in the footwell on drivers side.

[Guest001]

I have same issue but car was in a rear ender. Sometimes tail light fills with water too. After that i got ponds, before that no ponds.

Take it back and make them fix it properly If it was an insurance job get onto them as most guarantee repairs for life

[Lucas_R]

Yea. the ECU is in the footwell on drivers side.

No its under the plastic windscreen cowl (on the Mk5 GTI and Mk6 GTI/R anyway) near the windscreen wipers. Other models might have them in the footwell.

[minke]

No its under the plastic windscreen cowl (on the Mk5 GTI and Mk6 GTI/R anyway) near the windscreen wipers. Other models might have them in the footwell.

There's some body control module in the drivers side footwell that got wet and made the car a brick.

[duck]

Take it back and make them fix it properly If it was an insurance job get onto them as most guarantee repairs for life

You're right mate. Good point

[Lucas_R]

There's some body control module in the drivers side footwell that got wet and made the car a brick.

Yes there are plenty of electronics under the dash and near footwell's you wouldn't want getting wet, but the main engine ECU is under the windscreen wiper cowl. I guess damage to any of these would render the vehicle useless.

[jets]

but the main engine ECU is under the windscreen wiper cowl.

A Mk2 GTI that was my previous car also had the ECU in that position & one day I was fiddling around & spotted water laying around it.
It turned out the drain tube/tubes were blocked with rotting leaves. After that experience I am pedantic about removing any leaves going for a ride not just my car but any visitors as well.

[Mk R]

So it looks like the metal frame around the vent was damaged at some stage and this was the result. You can see the two streams have been running for some time. The one on the right looks like it's hosting new forms of life.

Bumper is coming off today in the sunshine and i've got two tubes of windscreen Adhesive ready to go. Going to giver both barrels and then clean out the boot seal which seems to have accumulated several years worth of sandy dusty slime under it over the years. Will put up some more pics when the job's done.
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[Mk R]

In anticipation of yesterdays torrential rain I had the mechanic silicone the vents while they were doing a service. Didn't work out so well and there were still a few leaks but nothing like the pool of water i had previously. The left side vent was on backorder and i didnt want to do this twice so i decided to repair both myself. There's also a whole lot more rain coming so I wanted to get on top of this gremlin ASAP.

Today I had a few hours up my sleeve so off came the bumper (apologies if it's sideways, the file shows the correct orientation):
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From there it was a look at the patch job and figuring out the root cause of the issue:
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Both vents turned out to have already had the bottom clips snapped off. This meant there was no compression on the rubber ring and no seal. This shot shows the snapped bottom clips. Was identical on both sides. These vents need to be removed top first if anyone finds them self doing this in the future.
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Next the existing silicone was removed from the seal area. This was an unexpected pain in the a$$. I ended up using an Opal card to scrape most of it off. Seriously regretted having the patch job done at this point.
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As the bottom of the clips had been snapped off, i needed something to hold the vent in place with a nice seal while the Sikaflex 227 did its thing over the next few days. I ended up drilling a small hole in the vent plastic on the inside and using some plastic cable ties which hooked up nicely to a random hole in the chassis.

[Mk R]

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I then gave the surface a wipe down and went completely overboard with the Sikaflex. It looks like a dogs breakfast but it'll hold nicely now.
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[Guest001]

So the question is why were the bottom clips broken. Had it had a prang and the panelbeater cheapskated. For future reference turps removes silicone Scrape as much as posssible off and then wipe rest with a soaked turps rag till its all gone. Adhesives dont stick to old silicone very well.

[Mk R]

So the question is why were the bottom clips broken. Had it had a prang and the panelbeater cheapskated. For future reference turps removes silicone Scrape as much as posssible off and then wipe rest with a soaked turps rag till its all gone. Adhesives dont stick to old silicone very well.

Thanks, that's good advice. After 20 minutes of scraping I ended up soaking a hand towel in turps to scrub it clean before laying the fresh sealant on.

[Guest001]

Thanks, that's good advice. After 20 minutes of scraping I ended up soaking a hand towel in turps to scrub it clean before laying the fresh sealant on.
Very good hope it sticks as Sikaflex is a far better product than Silicone. I used to be a roofer in a past life and never used the stuff as with dissimilar materials silicone always pulls off one of them if there is movement or even vibration The correct Sikaflex stays stuck.

[Transporter]

So the question is why were the bottom clips broken. Had it had a prang and the panelbeater cheapskated.

It certainly looks like that, or it was damaged in transport and someone did a quick fix.

[Mk R]

So after a weekend of rain the vents and boot are completely dry. The boot seat was removed and all the gunk cleaned out and replaced. Only thing left to do is to tighten what i'd call the boot bump stop above the left rear light assembly which has a little play and steel brush away some of the surface rust this leak has caused.

Taking the rear bumper off with the bluetooth music playing for a few hours killed the 4 year old battery so this leak fix has now turned into an AGM battery install project :P

[seanmau5]

My brothers Mk6 GTI has this same issue. He isn't much of a handyman and I haven't inspected the vents close enough to know what damage they have. I can definitely confirm that it is the vent that is leaking around the sealed as we've tested everything with water. New from VW they are $70 each, we've opted for that.


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[Mk R]

My brothers Mk6 GTI has this same issue. He isn't much of a handyman and I haven't inspected the vents close enough to know what damage they have. I can definitely confirm that it is the vent that is leaking around the sealed as we've tested everything with water. New from VW they are $70 each, we've opted for that.


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Good luck to your bro in fixing his leak. My only advice is to make sure the bottom edge of the vent is the first bit in when installing and the last bit out when removing or the clips might snap off and cause the same issue i found.

[seanmau5]

Good luck to your bro in fixing his leak. My only advice is to make sure the bottom edge of the vent is the first bit in when installing and the last bit out when removing or the clips might snap off and cause the same issue i found.

Cheers for the tip. I'll keep that in mind.


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