atex949

I can get some pics if you need them. try this first... repeatedly press and release the rubber door seal that runs horizontally along the door sill. Let me know if you hear a water sloshing sound as that was my problem. If its full up then you may even get water coming out of the hole in te seal half way up the hinge side of the seal. pm me and I will let you have my mob num and arrange some pics.

This post is both for information to other owners but also to confirm my own interpreation of the problem.There are a number of posts all over the cobweb about water ingress in A4's and I have verified that none of them are causing my problem. Water gets in over the inner plastic trim. This trim is the one along the hinge side of the pasenger door sill and up the side of the footwell (not the longer piece of trim running back along the rest of the door sill). After some hefty investigative work it appears that the water comes out of the door seal at the hinge level and runs down uner the seal between the seal and door frame and eventualy leaps over the plastic trim on to the floor. The door seal trim has two holes in the bottom, which I am sure we all know about, these were not blocked in my case but it seems that my door seal has a profile that is rather like one large and one small straw stuck together and the drain holes are only letting water out of the smaller straw. If you look at the seal around the door hinge area you will see a large hole in the seal. this hole is in the larger straw and if water gets into this then it backs up to overflow and can leak into the car as I have described. It might be a combination of my driveway slope and angle and the position of seals and trims etc but its a real problem. My conclusion is that the inner straw needs drain holes as well as there is nowhere for the water to go. I poked a sharp implement into the larger straw though the existing seal drain holes and squeezed all the water out and this seems to have solved the problem for now. I guess in a major downpour they could back up again until i can find a good way of making bigger holes without destroying the seal. I would like to know if anyone else has water in this part of the door seal after hosing their car down and whether your drain holes in the seal go right through both straws. Hopefully I have described this enough for sme sensible feedback. thanks. you can see if there is water stuck in the seal by running your thumb along the lower part of the door farme seal back and forward and you hear a squelching sound, after hosing the car down you might get a load of water jumping out of the door seal hole at hinge level with the door open. could post some pics of what I mean if there are too many words here!