SeanR

Just had a great looking, low mile 1995 GTS in for some electrical issues and they all resided under the drivers seat. Open the sun roof and see why. All 4 drains were clogged up causing the water to come in right above the drivers seat in the FR corner. The leather was pulled up as was the leather all the way along the A pillar to the dash.

When I was able to get the seat out, using various methods to get to all the bolts, everything under that seat had been water soaked. The window control unit ($225.00) seat/memory control unit ($400.00 used), acceleration meter ($600 used) were all toast. The window control box caused both window motors to burn out ($300 ea) due to sticking relays in the box. The only thing that still worked was the sunroof.

So, in conclusion, fix your drains or you can have bad issues.

AO

Sean... you might as well tell those who are not "in the know" how to clean the sunroof drains.

Jadz928

Or get 928s w/o sunroof and avoid this common problem.

SeanR

Good points


Here's a picture I took of a cleaning I did on a car yesterday (odd how these always come in at the same time)



Use some weed wacker string, go in from the hatch side to clean the rears like the above picture.

For the fronts you can see the hole looking in to the sunroof area, feed the green string in gently. if it stops, keep bouncing the string until it goes. You should get about 4 feet of string in there when it is cleared. Pour some water as you are doing it along the sun roof channels and watch for water pouring out the rear hole and hitting the ground behind the front tire.

DO NOT force anything in the fronts or use compressed air as it is a metal tube for about 6 inches then turns in to a soft rubber tube. If you dislodge that tube bad things happen.

Dave928S

I'll second that (clean your drains) ... but I also found another issue with mine.

I lost the seat memory board on mine for exactly the same reason (water under the seat), but it wasn't lack of cleaning. When I checked why I was getting slow drain away and easy clogging on one corner, which caused water to run in when I was parked slightly nose down, I found a slight kink in the hose which slowed draining.

The kink was where it went through the body out to behind the front wheel well liner. Once I figured out there was an obstruction to weed whacker line, that wasn't dirt, I pulled on the hose to get more through into the wheel well, which straightened the kink out in that section. I checked with an endoscope after straightening to make sure I hadn't dislodged the hose from the sunroof spigot.

That's the way it had been since the factory build, but it just took more rain driving starting with my ownership to surface. Luckily it was only the memory board which was trashed.

If you get slower draining on one corner at the front, and you have a difficult time pushing weed whacker line through, check for a kink.

terry gt

Thanks for the info , I forgot there were drains , I thought the seal kept the water out .

SeanR

Great info Dave, seen that on the passenger side where the washer tank resides. Roger had that on one of his cars.

There isn't really a seal for the sunroof, it's more of a trim piece that could deflect some H2O.

85euro928

And if you own an Audi make sure you clean the drain under the battery tray a couple times a year. Audi keeps the ECUs under the seats in a recessed part of the floor plan and when the drain clogs the water over flows into the cabin and fills up these recesses. A rain storm we got last spring cost me $6k and 4 weeks to get it fixed. BTW, there were 11 other Audi's at the dealer ahead of my wifes. It's what you don't know...

longleader

Thanks for the Pic Sean, I'll do that tonight

ALKada

Good reminder. Thanks Sean!

gunboot

Excellent post I will definitely be doing mine this weekend does nothing but rain here in the uk anyway!

Eplebnista

I have an old speedo cable I keep around for this purpose. Any reason not to use it on my 928 instead of the weed wacker string?

Ducman82

^^^ that's a great idea!

SeanR

For the rear ones only though.

linderpat

yes Otto - at least for the front drains. Towards the bottom end of the front drains, the drain material is a sort of soft rubber or plastic material. A hard or sharp cable could rip it, compromising the functionality of the drain. weed wacker line has enough flex not to do that.

Also be careful with those front drains - if you push too hard (if clogged for example) you could push the bottom part right off.