George Trudeau

Hey everyone,

My apologies if there is a thread on this, elsewhere. I did some searching of these forumns and didn't find what I was looking for. Anyhow, my daughter's convertible top is leaking when it's been sitting in the rain for long periods of time. We live in Washington state, so, that's pretty much 7 months straight each year.

It seems to be leaking, directly in the middle. From the right side of your head (ish) as you're driving. Maybe over the passenger seat a bit. It doesn't appear to be the result of a bad seal, as it isn't leaking at any edges or connecting points. There is glass gap on the passenger side door where it meets the rear window, but that's an entirely different issue.

Is it possible, that the fabric itself has deteriorated? It visually looks fine, but I don't know enough about it to diagnose. This was a California car previous to us buying it, and, I have a feeling based on the condition of the seats and rear package tray, that the car was likely stored with the top down, almost all the time. Just looks that way. Not sure though.

Is there anything I can do to prolong the life, or, is there anything else I should look at? I really can't spend thousands on a new top, but I can't let this problem persist and create other issues later (water filling the floor boards, yikes).

Thanks in advance!
George

Mike S.

I see your post is couple months old so you may have already fixed it but if not i had same problem and i fixed mine with canvas/ fabric waterproofing, has not leaked through top again, however my floorboards are getting wet some other way.
Anyway hope that helps.

George Trudeau

Hey thanks, Mike! No I hadn't addressed this yet so thank you! Summer is drawing closer to an end in the Seattle area so this has been creating mild anxiety for me as the skies darken in the mornings haha. Anyhow, I hadn't thought of that- I will give it a try, thank you!!

As for the water pooling in your floorboard- You will want to get that addressed ASAP. VW in all of their infinite wisdom, put a bunch of computer control modules in the passenger slide floorboards (I think there is some on the driver side too). My Cabrio had the leaking problem, and, resulted in the chassis control module and transmission module shorting out and frying. VERY expensive fix. If you ever notice interior accessories going bonkers, this is likely a warning sign (wipers starting & stopping on their own, windows erroneously not working etc). The CAUSE, is typically the drain plugs in the exterior front windshield tray (I don't know what to call it, it's where the battery sits) get clogged up with pine needles/leaves/debris. VERY very common. You should check that once a year at least. They get clogged rather easily, then storm water that gets down there (or when you wash your car) and doesn't drain to the ground- Instead, it drains into the car.

Hope this helps!

~George

George Trudeau

Just following up on this for documentation sake.

I did this a couple weeks ago, and not a moment too soon- Seattle morning rains have started rolling in over the last week! I purchased Star Brite Water Proofing with PTEF. I went ahead and got a 1 gallon container which was $42. I used about 1/3 of the bottle for this initial job, and that was spraying it REALLLLY Liberal-like! It was rather painless. I bought a cheap 20 oz. spray bottle at Dollar Tree and didn't quite use the full contents of the 2nd fill up.

1) Scrubbed the vinyl with a heavy nylon tire brush (it was a LOT dirtier than I thought). When I rinsed it off the 1st time, brown, dingy water rinsed off. As I was pretty shocked, I did this 3x for good measure.
2) I let it dry thoroughly in the sun. 82 degree cloudless day, took a couple hours, but I let it sit about 4 to be sure.
3) I used a lint roller to get as much off of the top as I could. It picked up a lot of loose fiber. At this point, the top was physically looking rather good.
4) I actually Frog taped around the rear window and across the top of the windshield. Not entirely necessary, but it saved on trying to clean up (it's petroleum based) and I honestly wasn't sure what this solution would do to the aluminum around the windshield.
5) I just sprayed the canvas realllly liberally. Don't do this in the sun. Do it in a warm garage. I did 3 full, HEAVY coats. **NOTE: Do not be alarmed- Heavy applications will leave a white haze, which is just tiny air bubbles. I was rattled by this initially on a black top, so tried rubbing them out once in a spot, which made it worse. I learned later that the canvas soaks it all in over a couple hours. I then let it sit in my garage for 24 hours. I asked my daughter to not use the top for 48 hours- which I don't know if that was necessary but played it safe. It was a little stinky for 2-3 days, but was completely absent of scent by the 4th day. It smells somewhat like turpentine or old style paint thinner. Your garage will be a little stinky for a day.

It started raining a few days after, and my daughter was elated to find that water just rolled right off of it like a Teflon pan. Worked PERFECT. She was a little annoyed though however, that the water now rolls off the top and into the car on the seat upon opening the door. Haha. Maybe a slight design flaw. In the end it looked great and worked perfectly- only cost $42 and I have enough for 2-3 more applications!

George

Doug Venable

In looking for posts on my problem I ran across yours. I'm only getting water in the rear passenger side floor. I've read on several other post about the battery drain plug however that doesn't seem to be where the water is coming from. Any suggestions would be great. Aggravating problem, vehicle is beautiful aside from this. Thank you.