Water leak

rocky raccoon

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2020
Location
Greater metropolitan Beaverdam
TDI
2014 Jetta Sportwagen
I know there are threads that touch on this already but I haven't found one that says "aha" to me.
I bought a 2014 Sportwagen from a dealer yesterday. Seems a much better car than I thought it would be but ....
Upon getting it home, I started stripping out stuff to give it a good cleaning. I found the spare tire well to have about 4 to 5 inches of clean water in it. It was obviously new since it was perfectly clean and odor-free. There was no corrosion of any kind in the well and the factory paint was unblemished. I also found no evidence of any moisture anywhere in the interior or floors. It was as though someone had poured water into the spare tire well and nowhere else.
I removed the rubber drain plugs and wiped it out after draining. The rear hatch gasket appears intact and soft. There is some evidence of crud in the channel though.
So, wassup? Does the sunroof drain into the spare tire well? Surely not. I am inexperienced with these cars. Can anyone give me a hint as to what may have happened?
 

Rafer

Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2018
Location
Fort Worth
TDI
2013 Jetta Sportwagen TDI
Hi there,

I am in the same situation right at this very moment. Here is what I uncovered:

I removed the spare tire, the folding cover, the storage cover, the plastic frame, and the hatch latching panel. This allowed for me to pull the rear interior panel back so that I could see where the yellow drain line leads to. I must have fed in 10 ft. of nylon line from the bottom and it never came out of the top of the yellow (drivers side rear) tube. I had poured in at least 10 ounces of water, but the end of the drain in the wheel well remained dry.

Pictured here is what I found out. It was draining into the rear paneling and flowing to wherever it could get to. I am pointing to the black drain plug which connects to the wheel well located behind the splash guard. My thumb is pointing to an inch of standing water and soaking wet insulation. Thankfully there is also a drain plug there that easily drained all of that mess.

I haven't seen a YouTube video showing this side of the repair.

Best of luck to you.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk
 

rocky raccoon

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2020
Location
Greater metropolitan Beaverdam
TDI
2014 Jetta Sportwagen
Rafer;
Just returned from my dealer. I had stripped out the rear stuff down to the plastic frame. Figured that since it is in Used Car warranty I would let them do some work. They found the identical issue that you showed in your photo. I showed it to them and they said "Huh". When I get a short beak in the action, I'll pull everything out again and cement a short extension of that tube in place.

Thanks for the Heads Up. Thats' what these forums are for. Maybe some day I can return the favor.
 

Thunder Chicken

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Location
Sioux Lookout, Ontario
TDI
2012 Golf Wagon
i doubt this is your issue, as I was having a spare tire well full of water as well.... i'd been through the sunroof drains, hatch seal.... and gosh darn it, the big patch of rust around the back window was the culprit. water gushes in around the window, down the inside of the plastic and just inside the hatch seal..... The spot of rust is quite big and hopefully a new hatch will come under warranty soon..... I had someone spray the garden hose at the car while i crawled around looking to find this one..
 

Porch

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Location
Asheville, NC
TDI
2011 jetta sportwagen tdi 6spd
On my jsw, I cleaned all 4 sunroof drains, flushed with plenty of water, snipped all 4 nipples, flossed drains with weedeater string, flushed with more water, everything seemed fine. But it wasn't. Facing a monsoon-level rain event in washington, with a still-leaking roof, I gave up and taped the whole pano roof shut forever with clear Gorilla Tape. It actually doesn't look too bad, and it also solved the ultra-annoying and seemingly-otherwise-unfixable sunroof creak.
 
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