sunroof drains

I started parking my car outside instead of the garage for the first time a year go and decided to make sure the drains were clear. Never checked them before. After trying to fish a weed-wacker line down the drains in front of the sunroof they eventually stuck, probably at the lower end. The lower end of the drain is a rubber tube in the door jamb, front passenger and front driver side, near the hinge. Kind of awkward to get a line fished up that rubber drain but I eventually succeeded and the drains were basically clean with no debris. I hardly ever use them anyway out here in the Twilight Zone of western WA.

I did not notice rear drains for the sunroof. If they exist please point them out,

They go down through the C pillar and drain basically by the back tire.

careful those joints can be fragile- prob not Mopar fragile (ram trucks had a issue with water gushing out of the A pillar) but don't agitate them to much

It matters not if you use your sunroof or not, water still gets past the seal and then goes down the drain. I don't use mine either, really wish they wouldn't install them honestly.

FWIW, my original post relates to drains for my 2005 Passat, not my 2013. I haven't looked into the drains on the 2013.

on mk7 GSW they have "spider traps" which are literally flapy caps on the drains that seem to weld up solid and cause leaks. You can access them and remove them, fronts drain near the wiper mechanism under the cowl, rears are all the way out back by the rear bumper cover.

Granted that's on a mk7 Golf platform but I think they used similar designs on previous generations, maybe your B5 Passat too.

goodmonkey said:

It matters not if you use your sunroof or not, water still gets past the seal and then goes down the drain. I don't use mine either, really wish they wouldn't install them honestly.

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+1 on this, they all leak 20 years down the road and are a PITA, plus if you have ever turned the rubber side up you know how terrible the things are when you see pavement screaming by inches above you

Often the rubber connections to the sunroof come loose and leak
The place where the tube is connected to the nipple is not glued all the way around and water runs right past.
The only fix I have found is the pull the headliner down and pull the tube out where you can get to the nipple and pull the tube out and glue if with Goop glue and then reattach the nipple.
A very poor design and execution.

redbarron55 said:

Often the rubber connections to the sunroof come loose and leak
The place where the tube is connected to the nipple is not glued all the way around and water runs right past.
The only fix I have found is the pull the headliner down and pull the tube out where you can get to the nipple and pull the tube out and glue if with Goop glue and then reattach the nipple.
A very poor design and execution.

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Agreed. I'm pretty sure I've had sunroof drain issues on my A1, A2, B4 (both) and A5 platform cars. On the A5 Jetta at least I could see the headliner getting wet. In the other cars they worked so well you only saw the water in the floorboard.
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