Volkswagen Group is looking into the causes of water leakage in its new Golf and played down a German magazine report that described the problem as large-scale.

Germany’s weekly Auto Bild reported today that the company’s best-selling model is prone to leakage of water into the co-driver’s footwell because of wrongly installed drainage tubes linked to air-conditioning technology.

“We have come to know this issue through individual cases,” a spokesman at Volkswagen’s headquarters told Reuters, saying the company was seeking to determine the cause.

The magazine report had said about 300,000 VW Group cars could be affected, including its Audi A3 and Seat Leon compact models.

The spokesman declined to comment on the 300,000 figure in the report. However he said no more than 46 Golfs had needed repair for the water leakage problem and had since been functioning properly.

He said the company had no knowledge that Audi and Seat models were affected.

Volkswagen is increasingly relying on modular platforms to lower production outlays, shorten assembly times and create more vehicles that are more tailored for specific markets at lower costs. The VW Golf, Audi A3, Seat Leon and Skoda Octavia are the first vehicles to use the groups’s MQB modular platform.

But the high levels of commonality — the proportion of parts that can be shared among its different brands and models — could expose the group to potential large-scale recalls such as those experienced in recent years by Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp.