Sunroof drain clogged and leaked into cabin twice on passenger side. Odor in cabin.

My sportwagen has had the sunroof drain on the passenger side back up and leak into the passenger side of the vehicle twice within a 6 month period. The 2nd time was worse and it showed leakage on all pillars of the passenger side. The carpet in the passenger footwell was wet after the 2nd leak also. Now an odor of stagnant water has developed in the car that you can smell throughout the whole cabin. It is coming from the carpet and insulation on the passenger side. While I was trying to zero in on the odor I found a gear on the passenger floor that turned out to be a Glovebox part. The glovebox has always slammed open but I never saw it as an issue.

I took it in for service at the dealership under the CPO warranty. They want to charge me directly for both the sunroof drain cleaning of debris and the glovebox repair. They referenced the debris clogging the drain and that the glovebox was not reassembled properly after a repair when I asked why I would have to pay anything outside of the $50 deductible. When I let them know that I thought it was unreasonable to pay for the repairs they said that they would call Volkswagen warranty and see what they could do. I also pushed for them to do something about the odor in the carpet that was a result of the sunroof drain leak.

They are to get back to me but any advice on how to proceed from my end would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Sunroof drain issues is common. I believe I've taken my car to the dealership for the same leak over 6 times in the past 1.5 years (clogged drains and cracked sunroof frame). As for the gear for the glovebox, you can easily take care of it yourself and not have the dealer charge you. It'll take only a couple minutes max and is similar to the process when you are changing your cabin filter

My understanding is that if the issues are covered by the CPO warranty, you should only pay the $50 fee per subject of repair, regardless of the number of repair attempts on the same item.

It may be covered unless they say you weren't keeping up on "maintenance of cleaning the drains", which is a easy cop out.

Worst case, you can do what my sister in law had to do a few months back on her 15 GSW that leaked. She put it through her car insurance as we had damaging rain/flooding. They covered it under her comp. Dealer replaced a tube that came off and headliner. It took them 6-7 weeks but fortunately she had a rental immediately from the insurance and the dealer gave her a loaner when they could fit her in. What a debacle but she was only out her insurance deductible.

So VW warranty ended up approving full carpet and padding replacement in the car which sounded great at the time. They even cleaned the pan while the old carpets and padding were out. When I got in the vehicle I could still smell the odor. I figured I'd take it home and see if it faded after a few days. We had good weather and I left the vehicle in the sun with all doors hatch and sunroof open for 2 days.

2 weeks on and the odor is still there and seems to be stronger now. The smell is throughout the cabin and it doesn't seem to be eminating from any particular spot. It doesn't seem to be coming from the vents when you turn the HVAC system on. There has to be stagnant water pooled up somewhere inside this vehicle and I want to provide as much information to the service dept as possible. I called them back and scheduled another service yesterday and when I went out to my car in the afternoon the whole front windshield was fogged up on the inside and the rear passenger window was fogged up slightly. Any suggestions?

Did you check the spare tire well?

I checked it after the sunroof leaked but haven't since the car has come back from dealership service. And I just pulled the sub and tire I did not remove any carpet or covers when I checked.

Another spot to check: At the rear of the rear wheel wells there are sponge rubber sound blocks that will absorb a ton of water at the bottom from leaking/backed-up rear drains. The left one is easier to access through the jack panel. The right one is harder to access because of the smaller access panel.

Thanks, I'll see what I can find.

An old trick for odor removal is ammonia. If you can find the area generating the odor, even better. Mouse pee stinks worse than cat, which is bad enough. Here is how you use it, pick a time when you can let it sit for a few days, set several bowls on floor, pour ammonia, flavored lemon or plain in bowls, or pour directly on carpet that stinks, close car up for a few days, longer is better, open car up afterwards to air out. It will dissapate very quickly, in a few minutes usually. I used a gallon on carpet of 1964 caddy conv that had years of mouse pee and the odor was completely gone after two weeks. Another product that works is a professional dry cleaners chemical they use to get urine and vomit odors out, called Exit but its sold in gallon size, enough to do 500 cars.

Ammonia is the best, being a gas it chemically destroys odors in everything, tobacco included that has permeated plastic and upholstery foam and fabrics.

and it helps make your car smell like cat pee while it works

That's good to know but the fact that I can't pinpoint the odor means I'm at a loss of where to lay the ammonia bomb.

I would bet that there's standing water hidden somewhere though. The odor is definitely that of a stagnant pool of water.

740GLE said:

It may be covered unless they say you weren't keeping up on "maintenance of cleaning the drains", which is a easy cop out.

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Nutty 5.0 said:

. Dealer replaced a tube that came off and headliner.

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On a similar mkvi thread it was noted the loose hose to fitting fit, and VW uses 2 dabs of clue that often dryed out and is compromised AFTER cleaning. My local VW cleans/clears the drains with air pressure.

JELLOWSUBMARINE said:

My local VW cleans/clears the drains with air pressure.

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Yikes, that is how to pop the hose off the nipple if its solidly plugged. The correct way to clean the drain is with a cleanout line like speedo (inner) cable.

Water from a leak up front can end up in the rear footwells as they are lower. If looking for origin of mould order use your sniffer.

thundershorts said:

Water from a leak up front can end up in the rear footwells as they are lower. If looking for origin of mould order use your sniffer.

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The carpets and padding were replaced. I've tried your sniffer suggestion and can't pinpoint it.

I was posting in the hopes that someone else with a sunroof drain leak had found water somewhere outside of the usual suspect areas.

I discover the source of a leak on my Golf. Water was entering the vehicle from the top of the windshield. There was a rubber seal that was kinked and whenever water would roll of the vehicle roof it would run down the headliner to to the right pillar and kickpanel into the floor. Applied some clear vinyl tape along the top of the windshield across the whole windshield. Next rain no drip.
Hopefully when I have time to replace the windshield I can fix the rubber seal, but for now. No water.

mattbuy said:

I discover the source of a leak on my Golf. Water was entering the vehicle from the top of the windshield. There was a rubber seal that was kinked and whenever water would roll of the vehicle roof it would run down the headliner to to the right pillar and kickpanel into the floor. Applied some clear vinyl tape along the top of the windshield across the whole windshield. Next rain no drip.
Hopefully when I have time to replace the windshield I can fix the rubber seal, but for now. No water.

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If this is your Mk. IV, you're in the wrong forum.