Volkswagen Golf water leak - £1800 cost

doningtonphil

Hello

My father in law has a 15 reg Golf estate. He loves his Golf estates, this is his 4th and he has always jumped to the main dealer's tune.

Anyway, he has often notice the windscreen steamed up when he has got in the car in the mornings. Every now and then he has smelt a damp smell but it has soon gone and thought nothing ofit.

Anyway, he took it to the dealers for its service. They called him to to say they had identified there must be a leak into the cabin of the car. He went to pick the car up and made an appointment to take it back on Monday so they could search for the leak.

Within an hour they advised they had found the leak, apparently in the rear passenger door window seal, down behind the dooe card, then out of the speaker?!?!?!

Anyhow, they have advised him it will cost £1800 to fix, they are willing to pay half.

Half, half? As far as I can see, this fault has been there since the car was built. There is plenty of evidence this is a known fault on this model on tinterweb.

It seems strange they promptly found the fault on the first service after the warranty expired.

What is your view, is there any reason Volkswagen shouldn't be paying for all of this? If they don't budge, how does he go about pursuing it. Is his brand and main dealer loyalty worth highlighting?

Regards

Phil

AdrianC

Did he actually flag this to the dealer, or did they simply notice the steaming/smell and investigate?


I'm not particularly surprised at the cost - dealer rates will be well over £100/hr. Consider the time to strip the door out and resolve the issue. And if the water's been coming through the speaker, then the seats and door treads will have to come out for the carpets to come up and be dried or replaced. £1,800 is probably 10-12hrs labour, no more, before any parts. And that's assuming no corrosion or electronics/wiring damage through water ingress.

Window seals are not designed to be watertight. There should be drains in the door bottom to let water out that gets in, together with impermable membranes to keep the water from entering the car itself.

Lorraine384

Hi OP
Appreciate this is a very old post. Do you mind me asking how this went? I’ve just discovered a water leak in my VW Golf 2017 plate and very worried. 

Thanks 

ilikedrawing

Lorraine384 said:

Hi OP
Appreciate this is a very old post. Do you mind me asking how this went? I’ve just discovered a water leak in my VW Golf 2017 plate and very worried. 

Thanks 

It's a really common problem for newer Golfs..Is yours a hatchback? What exactly have you discovered?