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5 minute read
Hello All,
I recently got a used Touareg and encountered this scary issue. When I first got the vehicle I gave it a once over and noticed the air filter was all destroyed so I bought a new one not thinking too much of it. There were leaves and what not and my guess with it being low mileage that it was original and just need a new one. Here is a short thread on me getting the Touareg:
Time passed and didn't think anything of it. I had my car shipped up north and drove it to northern Wisconsin. Once I got up there I thought that I should give the vehicle a once over to see how she did on her first real road trip. Info: this vehicle was owned by my grandfather and had low mileage, 20k, and was only driven to the store and back. This was its first real long drive of 3 hours. When I checked out the air filter the bottom was rotten out and there was a puddle of water in it. Confused and startled I pulled the air filter out, tried drying it out, and drained the water out of it. The bottom had some crud in it so I cleaned it and made sure it would drain properly.
After being startled by the water in my intake I took to the old forums to see what was going on. Supposedly this was a common issue and a recall. For the US market they just pulled the rubber bung and tube right out of the bottom of the air box so the water coming in could drain out properly. For the Chinese market they got actual parts to help deflect the incoming water, here are their part numbers:
7P6805762
7P6805962C
These parts however were not available for the US market so I found a thread of a guy who made his own:
https://www.clubtouareg.com/threads/my-2015-to-17-water-in-air-filter-fix.293552/
I may take this route if this continues to be a problem (read more).
Worried about the situation and having to drive from northern Wisconsin back to Florida, this concerned me. My first drive was from Wisconsin to central Michigan taking the UP way. During this trip it was raining the entire time which made me very worried. I stopped frequently to check the air filter and to my surprise there was no water. Second journey was to Detroit a 3 hour drive and similar situation no water. Luckily I had ordered a replacement filter and changed it out once I got to Detroit.
Next two big drives were down to Kentucky and down to southern Florida, again encountering plenty of rain but no accumulation of water in the air filter, I thought I was in the clear. So randomly in Florida I thought I might as well check things out again to make sure things are alright and here there was another puddle in my air filter! This pissed me off so from my understanding I did the American recall procedure which was ripping the rubber bung and tube out of the bottom of the air filter so that there is an open hole for the water to drain out of.
With this being a very serious issue, potential catastrophic engine failure, I will be keeping an eye on it even with the "US Fix" completed. I may revisit the thread linked above and make my own type of deflector to keep rain from entering the intake to keep my newly acquired vehicle alive. YIKES!
I would like to note that I read many threads that just said, "Run some hot water and clean the rubber piece once a year and you should be fine." On that note that is exactly what I did and here it is less than a thousand miles later holding in plenty of water in my intake. My thought would be to rip this crappy drain tube out and build the custom intake shield to divert the water around. Or if you have international roots, order the Chinese plastic diverter piece which I have found to be around $70.
