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Water in drivers footwell!! help possible Heater Matrix??

7.3K views 15 replies 7 participants last post by  badsaboy  
#1 ·
Hello people. thanks for reading.

i have a 2001 corsa c 1.0l GLS. i have owned it for around 3 years and hasnt given me much trouble. i recently noticed that my footwell was covered in water. so i did some investigation. 1stly the coolant tank seems to be holding water well so its hard to say that its from the heater matrix. but as it is only the drivers side that is wet i do not know what else it could be. i took apart the centre console area to get to the matrix. i ran the engine till the temperature increased and waited to see if there was any leaks. i could not see any so am not sure where it came from.

i also removed the car battery and cleared all the rubbish to ensure rain water wasnt leaking over from there but that seems fine also.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

many thanks again

K
 
#4 ·
Same problem with my corsa 1.2 sxi. It is one of the seals between the engine bay and the cabin area. When it rains it will leak in. Solution is to lift up bonnet, remove windscreen whipers and plastics etc. and re-seal the engine bay/cabin divider with a bit of mastic. it may take 2 or 3 goes to re-seal up the right area. If this doesn't work u may have to ake it into a garage. hope this helps.
 
#5 ·
hey, duno how to put pic on here. so will need to describe.

so opened bonnet. on the drivers side at top you have the water tank. and if i remove the plastic there is also i think power steering fluid which is attached to a big round black box which is area where the plug is i think. so do i need to remove the wipe blades then the whole plastic area. once that is done. is it easy to locate the plug. also when located how can i tell where to foam the plug up from. i am so vexed right now could smash my car lol.

Brookes do you by any chance have a step by step guide on how to do this or know anyone who could help me with it.

thanks for help,
 
#11 ·
firstly get a hose pipe and gently hose the windscreen only on the driver side. Get a mate to hold the hose pipe while you look inside the car at the top of the footwell (behind the pedals) for any leaks , drips or flows of water. i found one just behind the clutch pedal on the far left hand side. if you do find a leak then.......

.......remove the whiper blades and plastic trim at the bottom of the windscreen (2 minute job) and u will c where the seals are in the divider between the engine and the cabin (at the back almost underneeth the windscreen). This is where you may have a seal leak like i did. i just simply searched for a hole or slit and covered it in a bit of mastic. It soon sorted the problem. If the leak continues then it will be a hole or split in the seal near the two little black flap behind the engine which are a little awkward to get to and seal up. Kinchy-lad is right, get rid of any leaves and mud in which you may have collected. this will allow the rain water to leave the divider faster and so less water will leak through to the cabin.
i do not have a picture atm but will do my best to get a picture if i can. hope this helps
 
#8 ·
Definitely brake servo seal. I'm not sure why pinkpig would suggest pumping your brake pedal to see what happens as this is nothing to do with it - All it is is rain water getting through from the outside, through the seal around the brake servo, in behind the dash and the water should run in from around your throttle box area, or from underneath it. It's a job and a half as the whole thing will have to come out to dry out and be re-sealed. Tiger seal ftw! :D

My water was coming in through here, sorry about the big pic but it's easier to see at that size as if you look carefully you can see the run mark where the water had been coming through.

Image



DO NOT try to take shortcuts and seal it from the inside as it'll just run along and find a way in elsewhere, which could be a more serious place than the footwell.. Needs to be done properly I'm afraid :(
 
#9 ·
Hey Jexii,

thanks for your comment. hmm i will have a look tomorrow to see if i can find any water marks. as i have pulled up the carpet to help dry the underlay soundproofing up and also the sponge area under the pedals. i took the whole plastic area off under the wipers. but honestly i did not knw what i was looking for as could not work out what i was ment to look at.
 
#10 ·
Best thing to do is to get your head in the footwell with a torch, look around the area that I showed in that photo and get someone to pour water from a jug or something around the brake servo area. You'll most likely see it run through within a few seconds, then it definitely is that. Just soak it up with a towel :)

Mine happened over a long period time and I never knew, and it was through all the snow in the winter where I couldn't get to my car for a few weeks so I didn't realise until February! Probably had been going over the whole time I had the car - it was too late to save my carpet and soundproofing as it had rotted the lot, even started a rust patch in the footwell :(

I didn't know any different at the time, hadn't joined CCUK or anything so had to take it to my garage.. He ended up having it in there for 6 days as it was so wet, but to have all the servo taken out, dried out, resealed and put back in, it cost ÂŁ120 incl VAT. So probably best if you know someone who knows what they're doing to help you do it cheaper.

Good luck with it :)
 
#12 ·
hey brookes yeah that is a great help. 1st thing i really did was to clear both sides from under the battery and the bit infornt of the drivers side. il prob tackle a bit over the weekend as my bro in law said he will give me some help. by the way... how did you challenge the clean up. at the moment i just sorta sticked the carpet upright and not driving the car much. dont want to rip off the soundproofing under the pedals so what did you do to dry the car up.

thanks
k
 
#15 ·
hi mate, possible as people have said, the gasket behind the servo. they are around ÂŁ30 from vauxhall. my 1.8 done it bout a month ago and took it to vaux and they had a corsa c in the garage doing one. they told me you have to take servo, steering wheel off, all pedals out and alot of other crap. hope you find out whats causing it.