[lotus]

Those spot welds support the brackets under the dash for the pedal box and they only seem to be more prevelant on manuals because of the strain put on them when using the clutch but I suppose they still could be a problen eventually for an auto.
I will be pulling out the dash on mine soon as i have had this problem for a long time now and have just put body tape over them. You know if this is your problem if you feet get wet when cornering or in very heavy downpours as the water goes over the raised part of the panel instead of going around it.

If anyone is interseted I could take pics and show how to fix this permanately as those spot welds will eventually break and you may lose some support for your pedal box. i will be doing this on my AU1 XR8 manual.
I've taken the dash out of my EB2 XR8 to repair the pedal box ,so I can't see the AU being that much different to do. Just a bugger of a job to remove the dash and half of the interior for about 20mins worth of welding (max).