The heterogeneity of the solute ¯ux ®eld in the horizontal plane at the ®eld scale has been documented in several ®eld studies. On the other hand, little information is available on the persistence of certain solute transport scenarios over consecutive in®ltration cycles. This study was initiated to analyse the recurrence of solute leaching behaviour as estimated in two soil column tests emphasizing the preferential ¯ow phenomenon. Twenty-four small-sized soil samples were subjected to two consecutive unsaturated steady-state ¯ow leaching experiments with bromide as tracer. Observed breakthrough curves (BTCs) were analysed by the method of moments and by the advection±dispersion equation (ADE) to classify solute behaviour. Frequency distributions of the parameters indicating the solute velocity were heavily skewed or bimodal, re¯ecting the broad variability of the leaching scenarios, including some with pronounced preferential solute breakthrough. Exclusion of the preferential ¯ow columns from our calculations revealed an average amount of 37% of immobile water. The large-scale BTCs derived from assembling the individual concentration courses of each run showed similar features, such as an early bromide breakthrough. However, two distinct apices, viz. one preferential and one matrix, were observed only in the ®rst run, whereas the concentration decrease between the peaks was missing from the second run. A change in soil structure with continuous leaching was presumed to modify the interplay of the various ¯ow domains, thereby altering the spreading of the BTCs. Correlation analysis between parameters of both tests suggests that preferential transport conditions are likely to occur at the same locations in the ®eld over several in®ltration cycles, whereas the `classical' or expected matrix ¯ow is time variant and therefore seems to be hardly predictable.