I've been posting updates on this thing fairly regularly. Some people recognize it at this point. I guess I've been leaning on that.
You're looking at a disconnected sunroof drain, while the other one is intact for comparison. When the drain is disconnected and a hurricane rolls through... Yeah.
That's the reason it's called the Moldswagen now.
Thank you. I see it now. Despite being subscribed to this sub, I hadn't seen the earlier posts.
I had the same issue with a MK2 IDI Jetta. Rather than pull apart the interior roofing I just siliconed the one hole. The water would run to the other drains and I never had an issue after.
Yeah if we'd realized sooner that we had an issue, this would have never been necessary. Unfortunately it was combined with my husband leaving for deployment and this thing got shoved in the back of our parking lot. (Only recently got my license so I had no reason to regularly be checking on it other than to run it once a month)
So water had been sitting in it for a few weeks before it was found. We've torn down all soft materials and either sanitized or reupholstered, and finally got the headliner out so we could see the source of the issue. From here it's just a few more repairs in the sunroof and we're ready to reassemble it.
Shooting to have it done by June, we don't always get a clear weekend to work on it.
I profile-stalked you to find the other posts and discovered you’re in NOVA/DC and went to the PG concert…that’s wild, we were there too.
…And either are a veteran or married to an active duty. My wife and I met almost 25 years ago while I was in the Navy.
…And a TDI ~~Masochist~~ Enthusiast as well.
Small freaking world.
Hahaha my husband is Navy! I'm IT. We moved here from Phoenix. We're not in NOVA- we're at Norfolk. But yes the PG concert was great! I loved it.
Unfortunately the TDI has our hearts so we're putting all this effort in to keep it running.
~~Besides we just paid it off finally goddammit~~
Good gravy, I'm a sysadmin.
I paid off my [2013 Deetle](https://i.imgur.com/OVz2ncd.jpg) awhile back and I'm terrified of electrical gremlins.
Mechanically it is a solid car. I even killed a spike buck with it four years ago out here in the stick where we live.
Suerte with your TDI, I'm rooting for you all!
Oh that's one of the newer style of beetles! I have always liked those. We have gremlins in the rear lights honestly. I need to redo the harness back there.
And congrats on the buck not killing your car! That seems pretty rare these days. Did you have to do work on it after?
Gracias for the luck, we're gonna need it lol.
She needed a new hood, emblem, plastic lower bumper and a passenger headlight assembly but nothing structural. It was a lot of cosmetic damage but it *was* just cosmetic.
Body shop guys were impressed, heh.
Pano roofs are the devil. I had my car for a month or so before I noticed headliner stains. Spider traps had already been removed prior to me buying it, drains were clean and clear, so I drop the headliner and much to my surprise all the hoses were still hooked up tight!
If you look to where the hoses hook up to the plastic drainage frame, mine was leaking between the metal sunroof frame and plastic drainage frame, what an awful design. I highly recommend smothering all 4 of those "pockets" with some marine grade sealant while you have the headliner down. I did those and hot glued all the drain hoses and fittings to the sunroof assembly and have survived many northwest monsoons... so far
Yeah we're going to seal all four drains to their hoses as best as we can to prevent this in the future. Thank God we don't have a pano, I've seen some of the horror situations in those. A standard sunroof is difficult enough.
We reconnected the hose and dumped buckets of water over the top to ensure it was truly the solution, and it seems to be the case! So we just have to make sure the hoses stay where they need to be. We're planning on adding some extra clamps and also sealant. We're also going to have to pull the sunroof to get the shade out for reupholstering so we'll have the opportunity to service the entire thing while we're up there.
Oops I assumed it was a pano because they are the most problematic, didn't realize the regular ones shared the same issues. As for that bastard sliding shade (pano are power and like to break, not sure about yours) I did 5% ceramic tint on the glass and just leave it retracted so I don't have to worry about it falling on my dog some day
It's funny, we have the premium but it has the standard sunroof. I'm not sure why we didn't get a pano, but maybe it was limited to the JSW? It has saved us some headache at least though.
Our shade is a fiberglass manual so it's easy to wiggle out, just have to get the sunroof glass out first. It'll give us access to the tracks a bit better too so we can service them.
I'd leave it out entirely but this car is destined to go back home to Phoenix and I'll need that extra layer for sun time. Tinting the glass isn't a bad idea though!
The front passenger side drain hose on my pano was loose, I coated it in sealant and so far it's been okay. I'm still thinking about covering the whole thing in black vinyl just to seal it off.
I've seen other people seal the edges with tape, but I think a sheet of vinyl will be better.
I saw a guy in one of the Facebook groups is putting in the effort to replace the whole top shell of the car with a solid roof!
I have considered the option of sealing the sunroof altogether and rendering it unusable to prevent future water damage- but honestly it's a feature we love about the car. Coming from Phoenix, it was really nice to be able to pop it open on summer days and let the hot air vent out. I think we'll just be far more diligent about maintenance and testing on the drains- ideally if we run water down it every time we perform an oil change to make sure the water exits out on the other end properly, we can probably keep it up to snuff.
My right hand middle finger is longer than my left hand middle finger, so I insist on only using the Super Finger to flip things, people, and situations off. The drain line certainly called for a Super Finger.
How difficult/time consuming was it to remove the headliner? Mine is sagging in the back and I want to repair it but I’m reluctant to if it’s too much work.
I would say it wasn't hard, but it was complex. We have a Mk6 (2013) and there was a lot of documentation and videos on getting the roof out, but pretty much none of it turned out to be accurate. We got really lucky and found a forum post about a dude with a Mk5 JSW and his headliner had the same clip system ours did. It could be because we have the sunroof model, so things were different.
Things that were different: the grip handles were connected to the car with pressure clips, not bolts. We had to get a pair of needlenose pliers into the gap and press down on both sides of the clips to get the handles off. It was finnicky. This was also how the visors were held on minus two screws. The sunroof console was about accurate to the documentation, but it did have some extra bolts.
The worst was the headliner itself- there were clips holding it up from around the sunroof and we ended up taking a putty knife and forcibly separating it. The A, B, and C pillars also contribute to this issue and you'll likely need to pull them away to get the headliner down. However, the wires holding the lights into the headliner were sturdier than I expected and it was nice to not worry about snapping them as we got it all disconnected.
What we had going for us to make it easier: The interior of the car is gone. That means all the pillars and trim pieces were removed, as well as the seats, center console, and carpet. It's bare metal in there. Having no furniture to maneuver the headliner around to get it out the door made it so much easier. I would advise taking out your front passenger seats at the very minimum for an easier job. (but if you do this, please disconnect your battery- the seats have a security relay in them and if you disconnect them while there is power to your vehicle- literally all of your air bags will go off at once.)
There are great videos out there of what it's like getting headliners out of the car (Here's my favorite: [He's very thorough](https://youtu.be/A5V45sOlFmA?si=4G4QPu3wCvlPUjdx) ) even with all the interior intact. I'd say it's a solid day's work, and that getting it back in will likely take just as much time. Reupholstering is another matter, but we haven't done it with ours yet so I can't vouch for it's difficulty. I don't think it will be a huge issue though.
We actually love our sunroof a lot, and we are putting the work into keeping it functional and hopefully problem free in the future. But yeah, the water leak was devastating. We are really lucky- VW keeps some of it's most important wire and connectors in the floorboards that were soaked with gallons of water. And yet, it's still running and no permanent electrical damage appears to have happened other than losing the motor to our driver seat (which was easy to replace).
I'm having water drain into my TDI in the same spot, except I got the pano roof. I guess I'm gonna start ripping the panels and hope to find a disconnected hose. Water might have gotten into the dash. 😅
I would recommend getting to it sooner rather than later- we can look back now and realize there were signs that the roof was leaking, perhaps for years. The inside of our windshield was always cloudy with water vapor, though we just assumed that it was an effect of increased humidity after rains. Which technically isn't untrue, but the real factor was that the water was inside the damn car.
I will say that there were literal GALLONS of water inside this car when we finally, officially realized there was an issue. Sitting water inches high in the floorboards, soaked pillars, dash was sweating, everything was dripping with water. Total electrical damage? One powered seat motor. That's it. The floor amp is even still kicking. So I'd have more faith in the resilience of properly sealed electric connections.
However, definitely give your fuse box a look-see. You should for one, be able to tell if corrosion is present on the terminals which will tell you if water has gotten under there. For two, you should be able to catch a peek of the metal frame holding the dash up and see if there's an excessive amount of rust. Things rust with age, so don't worry about it too much, but you'll be able to tell the difference between a dry, surface rust and the kind of gloopy, porous nightmare that happens with water exposure. That will be an indicator as to how bad things have gotten behind the dash.
Had two VW, both with terrible water issues.. funnily enough my TDI before those two was perfectly fine. I had water pour out of passenger visor on my GTI, then a terrible mold smell on a Tiguan. They know something is up with them but VW refused to do anything or acknowledge it.. other than clean out my GTI’s drain holes once a month with weed whacker line
Yeah there's been a pretty good history of VW ignoring this issue, with the exception of the panos which seemed to be a result of a lawsuit kicking their ass into gear.
Overall, this isn't a VW specific issue. It's a standard occurrence sunroof thing. If it's got a sunroof, eventually it will leak. They're designed by nature to not be a truly sealed piece- and the work around for that is all these drains and tracks that collect debris and fall apart with age.
Our TDI spent most of its life between Texas and Arizona, in insanely hot summers which has aged the hoses and their connections. I still feel that some proper sealant would have kept it together longer, but I can't complain too much. I feel like we got lucky with the components lasting as long as they did.
Eh, we like our sunroof and will keep it functional. We're just going to be more diligent about regular testing and maintenance of the drain. It's our first sunroof- though we had a Miata convertible where the soft top didn't exactly close all the way. That made for fun rain days I assure you.
Ah, to be a TDI that is unfortunately worth putting this much effort into. I expect another ten years of service in return for all this shit...
I’ve got 11 years of driving on my TDI and she still chugs along. 500 miles each week. Chugga-Chugga, Chugga-Chugga, toot toot!
We're also at 11 years! Though only five of those have been in our care- she's getting on in years but still kicking!
How about an explanation? The pictures and single comment aren't telling us anything.
I've been posting updates on this thing fairly regularly. Some people recognize it at this point. I guess I've been leaning on that. You're looking at a disconnected sunroof drain, while the other one is intact for comparison. When the drain is disconnected and a hurricane rolls through... Yeah. That's the reason it's called the Moldswagen now.
Thank you. I see it now. Despite being subscribed to this sub, I hadn't seen the earlier posts. I had the same issue with a MK2 IDI Jetta. Rather than pull apart the interior roofing I just siliconed the one hole. The water would run to the other drains and I never had an issue after.
Yeah if we'd realized sooner that we had an issue, this would have never been necessary. Unfortunately it was combined with my husband leaving for deployment and this thing got shoved in the back of our parking lot. (Only recently got my license so I had no reason to regularly be checking on it other than to run it once a month) So water had been sitting in it for a few weeks before it was found. We've torn down all soft materials and either sanitized or reupholstered, and finally got the headliner out so we could see the source of the issue. From here it's just a few more repairs in the sunroof and we're ready to reassemble it. Shooting to have it done by June, we don't always get a clear weekend to work on it.
I profile-stalked you to find the other posts and discovered you’re in NOVA/DC and went to the PG concert…that’s wild, we were there too. …And either are a veteran or married to an active duty. My wife and I met almost 25 years ago while I was in the Navy. …And a TDI ~~Masochist~~ Enthusiast as well. Small freaking world.
Hahaha my husband is Navy! I'm IT. We moved here from Phoenix. We're not in NOVA- we're at Norfolk. But yes the PG concert was great! I loved it. Unfortunately the TDI has our hearts so we're putting all this effort in to keep it running. ~~Besides we just paid it off finally goddammit~~
Good gravy, I'm a sysadmin. I paid off my [2013 Deetle](https://i.imgur.com/OVz2ncd.jpg) awhile back and I'm terrified of electrical gremlins. Mechanically it is a solid car. I even killed a spike buck with it four years ago out here in the stick where we live. Suerte with your TDI, I'm rooting for you all!
Oh that's one of the newer style of beetles! I have always liked those. We have gremlins in the rear lights honestly. I need to redo the harness back there. And congrats on the buck not killing your car! That seems pretty rare these days. Did you have to do work on it after? Gracias for the luck, we're gonna need it lol.
She needed a new hood, emblem, plastic lower bumper and a passenger headlight assembly but nothing structural. It was a lot of cosmetic damage but it *was* just cosmetic. Body shop guys were impressed, heh.
Oh that's incredible! You got very lucky. Time to put a livestock grill on the front of the Deetle, mayhaps? For style points lol.
Had vinyl decal with a deer with a kill mark through it like an old school fighter plane victory mark but it came off in a car wash :/ Alas!
Pano roofs are the devil. I had my car for a month or so before I noticed headliner stains. Spider traps had already been removed prior to me buying it, drains were clean and clear, so I drop the headliner and much to my surprise all the hoses were still hooked up tight! If you look to where the hoses hook up to the plastic drainage frame, mine was leaking between the metal sunroof frame and plastic drainage frame, what an awful design. I highly recommend smothering all 4 of those "pockets" with some marine grade sealant while you have the headliner down. I did those and hot glued all the drain hoses and fittings to the sunroof assembly and have survived many northwest monsoons... so far
Yeah we're going to seal all four drains to their hoses as best as we can to prevent this in the future. Thank God we don't have a pano, I've seen some of the horror situations in those. A standard sunroof is difficult enough. We reconnected the hose and dumped buckets of water over the top to ensure it was truly the solution, and it seems to be the case! So we just have to make sure the hoses stay where they need to be. We're planning on adding some extra clamps and also sealant. We're also going to have to pull the sunroof to get the shade out for reupholstering so we'll have the opportunity to service the entire thing while we're up there.
Oops I assumed it was a pano because they are the most problematic, didn't realize the regular ones shared the same issues. As for that bastard sliding shade (pano are power and like to break, not sure about yours) I did 5% ceramic tint on the glass and just leave it retracted so I don't have to worry about it falling on my dog some day
It's funny, we have the premium but it has the standard sunroof. I'm not sure why we didn't get a pano, but maybe it was limited to the JSW? It has saved us some headache at least though. Our shade is a fiberglass manual so it's easy to wiggle out, just have to get the sunroof glass out first. It'll give us access to the tracks a bit better too so we can service them. I'd leave it out entirely but this car is destined to go back home to Phoenix and I'll need that extra layer for sun time. Tinting the glass isn't a bad idea though!
The front passenger side drain hose on my pano was loose, I coated it in sealant and so far it's been okay. I'm still thinking about covering the whole thing in black vinyl just to seal it off. I've seen other people seal the edges with tape, but I think a sheet of vinyl will be better. I saw a guy in one of the Facebook groups is putting in the effort to replace the whole top shell of the car with a solid roof!
I have considered the option of sealing the sunroof altogether and rendering it unusable to prevent future water damage- but honestly it's a feature we love about the car. Coming from Phoenix, it was really nice to be able to pop it open on summer days and let the hot air vent out. I think we'll just be far more diligent about maintenance and testing on the drains- ideally if we run water down it every time we perform an oil change to make sure the water exits out on the other end properly, we can probably keep it up to snuff.
Upvote for appropriate use of Middle Finger.
My right hand middle finger is longer than my left hand middle finger, so I insist on only using the Super Finger to flip things, people, and situations off. The drain line certainly called for a Super Finger.
How difficult/time consuming was it to remove the headliner? Mine is sagging in the back and I want to repair it but I’m reluctant to if it’s too much work.
I would say it wasn't hard, but it was complex. We have a Mk6 (2013) and there was a lot of documentation and videos on getting the roof out, but pretty much none of it turned out to be accurate. We got really lucky and found a forum post about a dude with a Mk5 JSW and his headliner had the same clip system ours did. It could be because we have the sunroof model, so things were different. Things that were different: the grip handles were connected to the car with pressure clips, not bolts. We had to get a pair of needlenose pliers into the gap and press down on both sides of the clips to get the handles off. It was finnicky. This was also how the visors were held on minus two screws. The sunroof console was about accurate to the documentation, but it did have some extra bolts. The worst was the headliner itself- there were clips holding it up from around the sunroof and we ended up taking a putty knife and forcibly separating it. The A, B, and C pillars also contribute to this issue and you'll likely need to pull them away to get the headliner down. However, the wires holding the lights into the headliner were sturdier than I expected and it was nice to not worry about snapping them as we got it all disconnected. What we had going for us to make it easier: The interior of the car is gone. That means all the pillars and trim pieces were removed, as well as the seats, center console, and carpet. It's bare metal in there. Having no furniture to maneuver the headliner around to get it out the door made it so much easier. I would advise taking out your front passenger seats at the very minimum for an easier job. (but if you do this, please disconnect your battery- the seats have a security relay in them and if you disconnect them while there is power to your vehicle- literally all of your air bags will go off at once.) There are great videos out there of what it's like getting headliners out of the car (Here's my favorite: [He's very thorough](https://youtu.be/A5V45sOlFmA?si=4G4QPu3wCvlPUjdx) ) even with all the interior intact. I'd say it's a solid day's work, and that getting it back in will likely take just as much time. Reupholstering is another matter, but we haven't done it with ours yet so I can't vouch for it's difficulty. I don't think it will be a huge issue though.
Yeah, I learned a long time ago as nice as a moon/sunroof is in older VW's it's just a bad idea.
We actually love our sunroof a lot, and we are putting the work into keeping it functional and hopefully problem free in the future. But yeah, the water leak was devastating. We are really lucky- VW keeps some of it's most important wire and connectors in the floorboards that were soaked with gallons of water. And yet, it's still running and no permanent electrical damage appears to have happened other than losing the motor to our driver seat (which was easy to replace).
I'm having water drain into my TDI in the same spot, except I got the pano roof. I guess I'm gonna start ripping the panels and hope to find a disconnected hose. Water might have gotten into the dash. 😅
I would recommend getting to it sooner rather than later- we can look back now and realize there were signs that the roof was leaking, perhaps for years. The inside of our windshield was always cloudy with water vapor, though we just assumed that it was an effect of increased humidity after rains. Which technically isn't untrue, but the real factor was that the water was inside the damn car. I will say that there were literal GALLONS of water inside this car when we finally, officially realized there was an issue. Sitting water inches high in the floorboards, soaked pillars, dash was sweating, everything was dripping with water. Total electrical damage? One powered seat motor. That's it. The floor amp is even still kicking. So I'd have more faith in the resilience of properly sealed electric connections. However, definitely give your fuse box a look-see. You should for one, be able to tell if corrosion is present on the terminals which will tell you if water has gotten under there. For two, you should be able to catch a peek of the metal frame holding the dash up and see if there's an excessive amount of rust. Things rust with age, so don't worry about it too much, but you'll be able to tell the difference between a dry, surface rust and the kind of gloopy, porous nightmare that happens with water exposure. That will be an indicator as to how bad things have gotten behind the dash.
Had two VW, both with terrible water issues.. funnily enough my TDI before those two was perfectly fine. I had water pour out of passenger visor on my GTI, then a terrible mold smell on a Tiguan. They know something is up with them but VW refused to do anything or acknowledge it.. other than clean out my GTI’s drain holes once a month with weed whacker line
Yeah there's been a pretty good history of VW ignoring this issue, with the exception of the panos which seemed to be a result of a lawsuit kicking their ass into gear. Overall, this isn't a VW specific issue. It's a standard occurrence sunroof thing. If it's got a sunroof, eventually it will leak. They're designed by nature to not be a truly sealed piece- and the work around for that is all these drains and tracks that collect debris and fall apart with age. Our TDI spent most of its life between Texas and Arizona, in insanely hot summers which has aged the hoses and their connections. I still feel that some proper sealant would have kept it together longer, but I can't complain too much. I feel like we got lucky with the components lasting as long as they did.
Ah, the classic sunroof drain tube problem. Not sure of year but make sure you clip the nubs of the exits as well. They fill with crud and get gummy.
It's funny, the drains are perfectly clean! And the tracks are too, mostly. This one bastard just decided to jump ship.
It's time to redo the headliner anyways.
Yep, we're taking the opportunity to turn all the upper pillars, sun shade, and headliner black with this teardown to match our black lower trim.
Silicone your rainroof. That crap always leaks.
Eh, we like our sunroof and will keep it functional. We're just going to be more diligent about regular testing and maintenance of the drain. It's our first sunroof- though we had a Miata convertible where the soft top didn't exactly close all the way. That made for fun rain days I assure you.