Car Water Leaks - Why we do a 28-point check

The 28-point check is not a fixed script that runs the same way on every car. It combines a sweep of the generic entry points common to all cars -- sunroof drains, scuttle area, door membranes, rear lights, boot seams -- with what we know about your specific model from over thirty years of water leak work. Some models have known weak points. Some cars we have seen a dozen times; we already know where to look first.

The reason the check exists is that water leaks rarely announce their source clearly. Water finds the lowest point, spreads under the carpet, and appears somewhere that has nothing to do with where it got in. A conventional garage might fix one entry point, the car goes back, and two weeks later the customer is back again because there was a second one. We would rather find all of them while the car is with us once.

An older lady came in last year with a Mitsubishi. She had twelve separate leaks. The car had rust in most of the entry points; the seals had perished together over time. We put together an estimate, made a video to walk her through what we found, and advised her that it probably did not make sense to repair at that cost on a car in that condition. She wanted to -- we understood that; she had owned it a long time and liked it. But we told her honestly. Sometimes the right advice is not to repair.

Most cars are not that. 90% of the cars we take in we get right first time, because we have been doing this long enough to know where to look and what to look for.

On timing: the check itself takes just over a day, sometimes less. If there is drying to do -- and most cars that have been leaking for any length of time will need it -- the full process runs three to five days. Occasionally we are waiting for a part or need an extra day for the drying machines to finish, but most cars go home within that window. We film the car when it comes in, film what we find, and send you progress updates so you can see exactly what is happening before you decide anything.

If we are drying the car, we spray antimicrobial product under the carpets as a matter of course. Water that has been sitting under a carpet is not clean water -- even if it started that way, it will have picked up whatever was in the foam and the underlay. The antimicrobial deals with any mould spores before they can establish.