How To: Keep Your Sunroof Drains Flowing Well
July 31, 2007 – 8:30 am by Dan Volkens
Filed under Car Care, Featured, How-Tos, Rants
Not keeping your sunroof drains flowing will result in a wet, stinky interior and a hefty repair bill.
Checking and clearing your sunroof drains is a really easy How To. Anybody with a sunroof SHOULD do this on a regular basis. I recommend checking your sunroof drains each time you either wash your car or clean the interior.
It cost me $119 and some change to have the drains cleared and the carpet in my passenger side footwell cleaned up. Now, I know that one can clear a clogged drain by running a flexible rod or something similar down through the drain. Personally I didn’t want to deal with it. And making a mistake, like puncturing the drain line or accidentally disconnecting it, entails tearing apart the interior to fix. On the bright side, I had them do the brake light switch recall while I was there.
Step 1: Locate Drains
Locate the drain holes and the nipples. (hehe) There are a total of four drains, two front, two rear. The front drains empty out inside of each front door jam as you can see in the photo below. The rear drains empty out inside of the rear bumper (on most MkIV models). To check the rears, you will need to reach up inside of the extreme lefthand and righthand sides of the bumper and feel your way around.
Drain Nipple
Drain holes
Step 2: Check Drains for Cloggage
You can clear most of the gunk and garbage out of each drain by squeezing, twisting, and performing any other questionable action on each drain nipple. I would not recommend biting it because as you squeeze it, dust, debris and/or water (if it was slightly clogged) will fall out of the drain. (Man, this How To is going downhill fast lol)
Step 3: Test Drainage Ability
Once you have sufficiently cleared each drain, grab a small glass of water (only a small amount of water is needed, like a 1/4 cup) and slowly… sloooowwwlllyy… pour the water down each drain to see if it flows freely out of the nipples.
Step 4: Do Your Happy Dance
If the drains worked in testing, you should be good to go. Doing this on a regular basis should help avoid any interior water leakage. If the front drains are clogged, typically they leak down the bottom sides of the dash and onto the footwells. If the rears clog, you’ll see water damage all over your C pillars and roof. Thankfully, the fronts clog more often than not.
If this is the first time you’re doing this, and your ride isn’t relatively new, I would recommend doing this How To and having it checked out at your local dealer or shop. The peace of mind is worth it.
How To: Keep Your Sunroof Drains Flowing Well
July 31, 2007 – 8:30 am by Dan Volkens
Nice post/ how-to! Lotsa peeps have this issue and don’t know where to start or how easy it really is.
Also, if you do have clogs and get it washed out, you could follow up with a safe solution of outdoor bleach/water, just to sanitize/clean the residue.
* wrap the hell out of your interior/exterior with towels etc. I have black carpet and I’d leap if I got a spec of bleach on it..
** i am not responsible if you do get bleach on something. this is just a suggestion! ;)
oh and print function is very nice!
RIght on oneighturbo, except I would freak over my black interior as well. lol :D
I had slacked off on clearing the front drain ends, for a long time. I drive a 2002 Jetta TDI Wagon.
Last year, mine overflowed from rain water, and it dripped out of the Make-Up Mirror (vanity mirror)
above the passenger’s side sun visor. The bottom of the drain tube (nipple) was just stuck closed.
The headliner in that area was pretty wet. No permanent ill effects thus far. Larry
Oops, edit — I meant to say, the water dripped out of the Light fixture (festoon light) that’s above the visor/mirror, passenger’s side. Sorry for any confusion; Larry
Hey Larry, yeah, that’s another odd place for the leakage to occur, but the tubing for the drain runs right past that area. Hopefully you don’t have any mold or mildew!
Dax,
Dude, this is the best site I found about this problem. I can find the Niplets by the front door for the front drains, but cant find the Niplets for the rear drains. I have a 2006 VW Golf, 4 DR. Any pointers on where to look? I’ve been under that car many times, but cant find the Niplets.
Thanks Man.
Hey Madman, thanks! The rear drain nipples are inside of the bumper. You have to reach your arm up underneath and inside of it, kinda near the left and right corners of the bumper respectively. When you reach in, try to keep your hand near the front of the bumper, so that your hand is on the bumper shell and not behind the actual bumper bar/mechanism thingy.
thanks! i have an 03 jetta and i squeezed this nipple and chunks came out and almost a quarter cup of water! thanks so much for this blog!!!! i really didn’t want to have to take it in the dealership for them to fix everything else except for the problem i initially went in for. hopefully this is is because everything seems to match exactly what you’re explaining.
VW should be ashamed for not warning its customers that this problem WILL occur with time. My 03 jetta wagon started dripping water through the light fixture about a year ago. Thought it was a bad seal on the sunroof and would require an expensive trip to the dealership. But after reading this and other forums (http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2115848 and http://www.theautobahn.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-12789.html), I went out and squeezed the front driver and passenger nipples. Sure enough, wet gunk came out followed by the remaining water from the rain tray. I’m sooo happy.
I have a 2001 Jetta with a sunroof, with the same problem lots of folks have noted — wet or submerged carpets after a rain. I read various web speculations on the cause, and saw some really great pictures of the sunroof drain entry and exit points. So, I poured water in the sunroof drain and sure enough water comes out the nipples above the front door hinge. However, on the passenger side I saw some water spill out from the right side of the glove compartment and run down to the floor carpeting — a sucess for any water leak detective! I suspect this is how lots of water has been getting in my front passenger foot well, and from there somehow sloshing to the back passenger foot well.
So, I figure the drain hose is either partly disconnected or has a hole in it. I pulled back some of the interior molding next to the right side of the windshield, and found the drain hose. When I again poored some water in from the sunroof drain hole, I could feel some of it coming down the channel around the drain hose. This VW drain hose would be very time consuming to replace, involving removal of the glove box and probably much more.
My solution was simple. I went to the hardware store and bought 7 feet of 1/4 inch flexible plastic tubing to run through the existing hose from the top drain hole down through the nipple at the door hinge. To seal the hose at at the top of the drain, I bought a 1/4″ compression sleeve that slides into the hose end and has a rim to keep it from sliding all the way in. I put a washer under this rim, put some superglue on the compression sleeve to ensure it stays in the hose, and caulked under the washer before pushing it into the drain hole It fit perfectly. Don’t pull the hose tight from the botton end, just get it close. Then just push it the last half inch or so and let the caulk make the seal.
The hose went in pretty smoothly, except when it got to the nipple near the door hinge. I pryed the rubber nipple out of the body panel with a screw driver, and either at that time or earlier the original VW hose disconnected from the nipple. My new hose then pushed right through and I slid it through the nipple about 6 inches, and refit the nipple into the body. This job was surprisingly easy, and only cost $6 in supplies plus a trip to the hardware store.
Since I know this has been a big issue for dozens of VW owners on the internet, and probably hundreds or thousands who haven’t complained on the web, I took some pictures to add to the knowledge on this subject.
I should note that from my reading on this, it seems some people have wet rugs caused by problems other than sunroof drains. These other problems may include a cracked cowel outside in front of the windshield, or maybe a bad seal on a pollen filter on the driver’s side behind the battery. So, the fix above may fix your problem if you have a damaged or disconnected sunroof drain hose (or clogged drain), but there could be other problems like the two I just mentioned. I can tell you that I proved my drain hose was leaking into the car, even though a lot of water was also getting all the way through the hose and through the nipple. Maybe that’s part of the reason people think the’ve eliminated a possible problem when they haven’t. Usually, if some water is being diverted to the interior, but not all, it will not be noticable (drips within the door frame and under the rug).
Maybe if I email my picturess to Dax he’ll post them.
I poured water down the front passenger drain of my 02 Jetta and not one drop came out of the drain end…instead I watched it leak down from under the glove compartment and onto the floorboard. I squeezed the nipple but nothing came out. Any ideas on something safe to try and snake up it to remove what’s blocking the tube? I don’t want to puncture the tube or disconnect it, but I also don’t want to pay a ridiculous amount to have a repairman do it and I don’t want to wake up another morning with my floorboards flooded. Thanks in advance for any help :)
Hey Annieb, yep sounds like your drains are clogged pretty well. Maybe you could try some really long pipe cleaners (if ones that are long enough even exist… I’m not sure) but you need to be very careful. I don’t think the tubing is so fragile that it would be easy to puncture. It might be. What I’d be more worried about is disconnecting a section while putting force on the tube to clear the clog.
Thanks Dax for the response. I started to wonder, if it was actually clogged, wouldn’t the water back up through the pipe and into the car through the ceiling?? The water was dripping out under the dash. So I pulled the nipple off to confirm my suspicion that the hose had actually disconnnected altogether from the nipple and the water just ran into the insides of the frame and into the car. Felt around and couldn’t grab the drain tube through that hole in the door…so I ran some plastic tubing down through the sunroof drain, fished it out the other end where the drain nipple had been, finally grabbed the main tube and reconnected it to the nipple and poked the nipple (ha) back in the door. Checked the other drains and they were flowing well out the other ends, so hopefully this fixes the problem, and I can have a dry Jetta from now on. I’m actually pretty f-in proud of myself too…I’m 23 and female and my usual solution to car problems is a trip to the dealership and a lot of swearing and paying my right arm for minor repairs. So needless to say I REALLY appreciate the advice on this page, you saved me some $ and frustration this week and hopefully from now on!
Heck yeah annieB! Congratulations on the repair, great job. :]
Where are the from nipples on a Beetle? They are not in the door near the hinge. I have heard two different things from two different vw dealers. One says they are under the vehichle but they dont know where and the other says they are under the plastic piece that covers the guts under the wiper arms? PLEASE HELP
Hey Curtis, never fear! I have found a how-to on cleaning the drains over at VWVortex.com, so that should show you the location of the drain exits. Check it out here. Let me know if that helps!
My problem seems to be worse then everyone else’s.. i have an 03′ jetta… i noticed that my front foot wells were soaked! a friend of mine (who works oncars for a living) took off the panel onthe inside and detemined that the drainage tubes must be off simply b/c the water was going between the panel and the door frame and going underneath all padding and carpeting… well, he fixed that, but now my back passenger footwell is soaked! why is that? can that be a result of the back tubes being clogged? there are no water stains on the interior showing where it is coming from, it’s just on the floor… please help me…
Think i’m having the same problem as kim. I have an 02 golf, rear passenger footwell swimming (3inches of water!) and now the fronts wet as well. I’ve uncolgged the front drainage tubes (I think) and now gonna pull my sleeves up to check the rear ones (now i can find them thanks to this site!) If only it would stop raining so i can get a proper look… here goes..
ok. I’ve found the rear one’s and they were ok. Would just one clogged passenger side tube cause so much water in rear footwell? I also have no evidence of where water coming from, just a soaking floor. I’ll see what happens. Thanks for the great advise, really helpfull
Hey Kim and Jan, that is an odd problem for the rear footwells to fill up. Typically if the rear drains clog, the water ends up leaking onto the roof fabric and related areas. But I think it is possible for it to run down into the footwells too. The only way to tell if they’re clogged or disconnected is to run a little bit of water down each drain while someone watches for the water to exit out of the drain nipples. If it doesn’t, there’s definitely a problem somewhere along the lines.
Also check the door seals on each of your doors to be sure it’s seating properly and in good condition I.E. not dry and cracked, or misshapen. Another test you could run is to have someone run a garden hose over your car while you sit inside to watch for any water entering the interior.
Here’s a couple more DIY’s from VWVortex.com that might give you some insight into what’s going on:
Golf/GTI Rear Sunroof Drain Fix DIY
DIY: Golf/GTI/Jetta Front Sunroof Drain Fix
Hope that helps! Let us know how it goes, guys.
Hi, thought i’d let you know that despite the rain hammering down last night and today the car is no wetter.. so fingers crossed its sorted. Now i just have to dry out the carpets. thanks for the help.
Excellent! Hopefully the clog problem is gone now. :]
hopefully… and i just wanna say thanks from England.. your site is much more helpful than anything in the uk. respect! :)
Thanks Jan, I always like making contact with international folks. And that’s what we’re setting out to do here at VB: to be useful to the everyday consumer!
I have a 2005 Jetta and I believe that in trying to unclog my sunroof drain I punctured a hole in the passenger side tube and as a result it is now leaking down the side door panel and through the cloth (causing potential water damage) where the airbag is. Do you have any suggestions for a DIY fix? I am super cheap and hate the dealership. My method of unclogging worked on the driver side but created a problem on the passenger side. PLEASE HELP ASAP!!! It is raining cats and dogs in SoCal
Hey Courtney, looks like one of our other reader’s DIY’s on replacing the sunroof drain hose with some cheap components is right on time for you. :) You can find it here, as well as on our homepage.
My mint ‘94 Passat leaked on the rear pass footwells since I drove him home from Georgia several years ago. Is this a symptom of clogged tubes? Also, heater never heats up when Minnesota cold–read:today. Replaced thermo and housing. Has anyone used air power, if you haven’t some benign snake of any sort?? Have Mk1 parts for sale…Tim Pahl
Yep, sounds like clogged drains Tim. I would first use the method described in the how-to before going the route of snaking the tubes or using air pressure. Either of those could damage the tubes, and then you’ll have to tear apart your interior to fix ‘em. :]
Dax,
Thanks a lot!! water in my car has been a problem for months. I wondered were the drops on the rear side boards are coming from whenever it rains. Just recently it rained the whole day and i found out that there was a great deal of H2O on the passenger carpet. Just extracted about more than two gallons!! I brought my VW beetle to the dealership and was informed after about more than an hour that they have to strip everthing to fix the drain. They charge around $700+!!! for this job and if I want to change the carpet, I was quoted at $1,300+!! Can you believe that!! That’s hold up!! anyways thanks for the advise! appreciate it so much..
Hey Carlos, yeah sucks about the repair. That’s crazy expensive, but I bet most of it is the labor hours involved.
Thoughts on cutting the end of the nipples to have unobstucted end.
Have 2004 Golf TDI with sunroof and same issues of drain problems. Learned a few things while trying to diagnose 1 inch of water on the passenger side of the rear floorboard. After checking the drains on the front and back we found that the drivers side rear drain did not seem to drain as well as the other drains. After talking to the dealership and not wanting to spend $100 plus to have them fix the problem, I decided to take the carpet from the trunk and the headliner down and find the problem myself. Once we got to the end of the line that hooks to the sunroof my stepson decided to try to blow the line out with a little high pressure connection that goes on the end of the water hose. BIG MISTAKE THIS CAUSED THE OTHER END OF THE HOSE TO BLOWOUT FROM THE STUPID NIPPLE. This caused water to run in the inside of the fender and in the trunk. It seems to me the whole issue is these nipples. What if you were to cut the ends of the nipples off creating an unobstucted path for the water to flow. You may still have dirt build up in them but it would seem alot easier to get that dirt out with out the blockage from the nipples. Personally I still think I have an issue other than the drain lines from the sunroof but I am still investigating it.
Good call Glenn. I’m sure the engineers had some reason for designing the nipples the way they did, but it sure doesn’t look like it would work well.
Excellent HOW TO……I had been struggling for ages trying to use a metal wire to try and unblock the drain channels (as per a previous google search). Of course one side cleared no problem, the other, no chance, the amount of prodding i did, i thought i might have damaged the tubes internally. I was about to give up and go to the main dealers when i thought i would try the web one last time.
Tried a different search on google today and hey presto, found this one and within a matter of minutes, drains cleared and water was flowing like wine.
Many thanks and keep up the good work!!!!!!!!!
Right on Ramo, glad it worked!!
I’m sooo glad I found this site! I have a question though. I have had major flooding on my passenger side of my 2002 Jetta. I used a carpet cleaner to soak up most of the water. I found the plug/nipple in the door and pulled it out. I also ran a small hose through the sunroof, down the drain and out the other end. Now I can’t get the plug attached back to the inner hose as the hose is inside and not long enough to pull out. Do you have any suggestions on how to reconnect the plug to the hose that doesn’t include taking the car in to the dealership and paying them $$$$ to take apart the dash, etc.
Hey Lorna, hmmm. Did you replace the original hose with a new one? Here’s a how-to on replacing it that one of our readers wrote up for us. I hope that might give you some ideas on reattaching the plug, though it didn’t involve removing the plug. Maybe you can follow that DIY and have enough hose left to slide the plug onto it and remove the extra.
I just had this happen and freaked out. Thank you so much, Larry, for letting me know that this is an easy and inexpensive fix!