The Big Drip

Hi everyone. Just bought my 1st TDI, a 2014 Sportwagon with a 6 speed manual and love everything about it. However, it just did something weird so I figured I'd ask the forum.
I drove home from work, about 30 minutes with the air conditioning on. Parked, turned off A/C, shut off engine and went inside. Three hours later I'm sitting outside and heard water coming out from underneath (the rear of the engine compartment, dead center) Looks like it burped up about a cup or two.
Pulled forward around 10 feet, it left a little trail for a foot or two, and that was it. Confirmed it was water with a clean, white paper towel. (clear liquid, no smell, no oily feeling)
Anyway, is this normal? Perhaps a clog in the drain which just happened to dislodge while I was out there? Any theories would be welcome.
Thanks for your time and thank you for having me!

check the coolant reservoir, make sure its not just water! if there is coolant in there, well thats great news. might be a clogged condensate drain, or rusted out floors trapping water!!! hope not! probably not

how many miles? got some pictures you could upload?

How again would leaking coolant be a good thing?
I was under the impression that a small water puddle means the condensate drain is not clogged.

3 hours later? a condensate drain should be empty by then
leaking coolant = bad
leaking water from a cooling system that only has water in it = good, now it can be fixed properly and coolant added vs driving around with just water and come winter, no busted block or popped freeze plugs.
if it is just a 100% water filled coolant system, i would go over everything as it was clearly neglected!

where else would water come from?

A/C condensation perhaps? Mine does this is well, and you can actually see the water drip drip dripping when the car is on and A/C is blowing.

I suppose that if one were clueless enough not to know that one had no antifreeze in the coolant then a leak that demonstrated it could be considered a good thing. But it wouldn't stay colorless for very long.

I agree that the condensate still dripping after three hours is anomalous.

Time for some investigating with a flashlight rather than a computer.

Just a thought, maybe totally unrelated, but your evaporator in the dash may be freezing up. Mine does this because it’s slightly undercharged. After running my AC for a while, the ice accumulates and after I park, it drips for however long it takes for all the ice to melt leaving a large puddle.

In my case, I know it’s icing because I was 3 ounces shy when I reserviced it and on days when it’s not really hot, it’s blows less and less hard over time and I have to cycle the AC off for a few minutes while continuing to let ambient air flow thru it to melt the ice.

Maybe one day I’ll get around to adding a couple more ounces of Freon...

Ham said:

...
Anyway, is this normal? ...

Click to expand...

Could be. Besides possibilities above, it could be that it took that long before the surface tension of the condensed water allowed it to spill over the edge of the drain plumbing and dribble to the ground.

Parking on an incline with the nose up is an activity that will tend to retain condensate in the hvac airbox. You can easily test this by reversing position in the same parking spot if possible and parking tail high. If you get an immediate, or nearly so, trail of water coming out, then you have your answer.

If the evaporator is icing up, the cool air from the a/c vents will slow or stop, and the cooling action will reduce with the diminished air flow. Icing in the evaporator generally indicates low refrigerant level.

Clogged drain plumbing may be a problem, but if the ambient humidity is low (like yours is in southern Idaho), and your trips aren't too long, then it may not show up. Still, if condensate is retained in the hvac box, then eventually you'll start smelling a musty mold odor.

A clogged cabin air filter will show as reduced airflow unless the recirculate button is on, since recirc pulls air from the interior and doesn't go through the filter.


Good luck,

PH