yeti Leaking Panoramic Roof - The Cause and the Cure

[cmh]

Thank  you very much- I've  printed out the pdf which is very helpful.

Now contemplating the next step.

 

[muppix]

I'm pleased to say that I recently fixed my leaky panoramic sunroof by pulling off both frontal drain hoses from the sunroof cassette and then pushing them back on once I'd covered the connectors with RTV - a kind of silicone glue. I didn't take the roof lining all the way out in order to do this, but I did have to remove the A-pillar trims (easy) and the sun visors (slightly more tricky) in order to bend the lining down far enough to gain access.

 

It's not a particularly difficult job but you might be left with some permanent creases in the roof lining if you pull it too far. For me that was a calculated risk, since I thought I'd probably do more damage if I try to remove the lining altogether, and not fixing the leak wasn't an option.

[SiFi65]

I am considering buying a 2017 1,4 L&C Yeti, but after reading this thread I am wondering if I may just be setting myself up for future woes. There is no indication that the car I am looking at has any issues at the moment, but is it a case of 'when' rather than 'if' it will eventually start to leak? If some of the posters on here are correct andf the cause is as a result of the sunroof design rather than wear and tear, then it surely must be the former. Any advice gratefully received.

[muppix]

I'm of the opinion of 'when' rather than 'if' but I wouldn't let that put you off, because it really is a cracking little car. It's 4x4 ability has saved my bacon a number of times in the snow, adaptive headlights are fantastic, the panoramic sunroof gives a great feeling of space, and full-leather seats are something to be enjoyed right now because you're unlikely to ever see them again if the vegatarian snowflakes get their way.

 

Seriously though, the leaky sunroof isn't a difficult fix, and if that's not your bag then take the fuse out and cover the whole roof with clear vinyl. 

[logiclee]

1 hour ago, muppix said:

take the fuse out and cover the whole roof with clear vinyl. 

 

That's my plan if I have issues once the warranty is finished.

[Bexhillian]

Logical solution, Lee & Muppix

My L&K lives outside and after 5 years, there has been no hint of a leak.

It is such a good car and has years of life left. Polishes up like the day we took delivery.

Even if our roof should eventually fail, a more mature version of clear "sticky-backed-plastic" over the joins will likely solve and keep the sun shining through.

[RCASEY]

Yes, it IS a design fault, joint between metal part and plastic part of fixed frame.

No liabiility accepted by Skoda at 5years /65k miles. - poor responsibility since it is such a common, well-documented serious fault on sunroof Yetis.

Not difficult to take headlining right down and expose leak paths on headlining/

Disconnected drain pipes was one fault and easily fixed.

Capillary leak did not respond to Captain Tolley's sealant / hypodermic needle applicator.

Other leak paths at rounded leading edge corner of rubber seal needed sealant to hold down and to gap-fill the (tubular) rubber seal.

Gaffer tape paint-to-glass looked unsightly and didn't stop the leak at all (3 gallons water from O/S front and rear footwell)

Decided other temp fixes would still impact any resale value more than a Skoda Dealer fix guaranteed 2 years Parts and Labour at £2300. (Ouch!) (Plymouth, UK)

The sliding roof fixed frame is extremely fragile - part price = £1400 - so asking an independent garage to do it was much too risky

Memo to self - remember to flog the car before 2 years is up - well before!

Yeti Design??? not impressed at all - too many ill-conceived and unnecessarily shoddy design features, long term reliability not fantastic.

[PhilEyre]

On 27/02/2018 at 10:41, United232 said:

Folks

 

Thanks for your comments.

 

@silverfoxtsbb 

Figure 7 in the document I attached shows the stripped interior. The floor itself is essentially just a flat panel, with a ~75mm transverse stiffener underneath the front seats. By design the stiffener does not have continuous contact with the floor. Water can therefore migrate freely between the front and back footwells at floor-pan level.

 

If the source of the leak is the sunroof (as opposed to the screen, heater, pollen filter etc) you can confirm this quickly by pulling off the top of the front door seal and/or the screen pillar trim on the affected side. You may have to remove the front grab-handle to gain sufficient access above the headlining though, but this is relatively quick and easy. If this is the source of the leak, you will see obvious dampness in this area (especially on the curtain airbag). In the 'Analysis and Testing' section of the document, I describe how to rule out issues with the drain tubes. What I failed to mention though is that you should inspect the curtain airbag discharge cylinder for corrosion - it’s located at the top of the B&C post. If it is corroded, it could fill the cabin with metal fragments upon discharge.

 

You say you've just bought the vehicle? Well then, someone's just sold it, so consider that this may have been their motivation for selling it. A 30 second internet search will tell you the cause is due to the drain tubes being blocked, so it’s entirely possible that they’ve already been checked. They weren’t the bad guys in my case, and I suspect in numerous other cases where they’re blamed, although I will concede that they will exacerbate the problem if they’re under-performant.

 

If you read nothing more of my document than the summary, you will see that a successful repair can be effected from the outside, without any dismantling. Good luck trying to dry the underfelt out in-situ though. Mine spent a week on a clothes airer, in a big warm house before it was fully dry. Come the summer though, it will dry out eventually as long as the leak is fixed, the car is in regular service, and you use the air-con to feed it with plenty of warm dry air.

 

To those whose sunroofs don't leak, I would proffer the following: There are two sorts of panoramic roofs in these vehicles - those which leak, and those which are about to. As I demonstrated, the repair can actually be quite simple. The hard part is mopping up the ensuing damage. You consider my approach as a preventative measure.

 

Good luck with your repair. Please post back with you experience.

 

Regards to all ...

 

On 27/02/2018 at 10:15, Llanigraham said:

I've never heard of one having wet rear carpets from a leaking sun roof.

Phil E: I just cleaned out rear nearside sunroof drain which was blocked and the litres of water sitting in the carpet behind driver's seat will I hope now disappear

 

 

[PhilEyre]

Just now, PhilEyre said:

To clean the drain tube I inserted 2.3 mm strimmer nylon from bottom of drainpipe - this is just behind the corner of the plastic bumper 

 

 

[cmh]

It really interesting reading all your solutions but I still feel like a Damsel in Distress. I have absolutely no knowledge of cars and even after reading all your great work I cant begin  to know to fix it myself.   Can anyone recommend a garage or someone who has done this who would mend mine. I live in N  London.

 

[cmh]

P.S  I'm looking for an independant specialist in London who can help with my Yeti leak. Does anyone  know anyone they can recommend?

 

[PhilEyre]

On 11/05/2021 at 22:39, PhilEyre said:

Yeti leak issue due to sunroof drainage seems to be common.  I have now located all 4 drainage holes, fore and aft, 2 are behind the corner of rear bumper which needs pulling away at each extremity (Yeti Elegance 2014).   By taking a good length of 2,3mm strimmer wire and rounding off the tip so it looks like a match-head.  I removed whatever was blocking the drainpipe very gently.  All 4 holes now drain and my carpet is about dry

 

 

[Paul52]

Just brought my Yeti back from it's MOT (2 advisories, a tiny oil leak picked up each year and some stone chips in the windscreen so not bad for an 8 year old car. I had planned to drop it in Sunday night so it was there for first thing in the morning but the weather yesterday was appalling and I decided with the regular reports of sunroofs leaking (and had a small ingress once a couple of years ago - just stained a small area on the headlining so I was lucky) it was better left under my car port than in the open in their yard area. I explained the change of plans and why to the Ashley the receptionist (who seems to know rather more about cars than I do) and how expensive it seems to be to remedy the problem and she replied that they had fixed one on a Yeti a little while back. Apparently they charged a few hours labour to take it to pieces, identified and repaired the problem and put it all back together for a total bill of around £500. I don't know if that included stripping out carpets etc. and she was clear that this was a specific job and if a car came in with a leak from a different problem then the cost might be different. If I understood her correctly they've fixed leaks from sunroof on a few other cars.

 

It's an independent garage specialising in German cars in Rowlands Castle (about 15 miles north-east of Portsmouth) and helpfully is about two minutes walk from the station on the Portsmouth-Waterloo line. They've been doing my servicing and MOTs for a couple of years and last year did about £800 of work on brakes and front suspension. I've found them reasonably priced and reliable. 

 

Here's a link to their web-site - https://www.hallsgarageservices.co.uk/ in case they may be able to help some of those with this problem. 

[Expatman]

6 hours ago, cmh said:

P.S  I'm looking for an independant specialist in London who can help with my Yeti leak. Does anyone  know anyone they can recommend?

 

CMH - if your Yeti is 2017 then it is “only” one year out of warranty and you have a good chance of getting a major contribution from Skoda for its repair. I would take it back to the dealer and insist they talk to Skoda (UK) to get them to repair it free of charge - "it’s only 4 years old and many other Yeti owners are having the same problem” . Nothing to lose and hopefully you will get a positive response and a qualified Skoda repair.

[vRSG60]

Can anyone recomend a place to buy the syringes?

[Llanigraham]

54 minutes ago, vRSG60 said:

Can anyone recomend a place to buy the syringes?

 

Try you local vet for some used ones.

[vRSG60]

34 minutes ago, Llanigraham said:

 

Try you local vet for some used ones.

Helpful as always!

[Llanigraham]

As alaways.
I've always got a couple of various sizes in the garage, all picked up from mine. Mind you I did refuse the huge thing they use of calcium deficiency in cows!

[vRSG60]

One thing I have noticed, I too tried the pond method of blocking the drain to see if water drained away in another area. I left it for 45 minutes or so and the level stayed the same. No water onto the headlining.

It makes me think that when the sunroof is shut it puts pressure on a joint or crack and the sunroof then leaks.

[RCASEY]

The only solution I've found after several leak-sealing attempts is to accept there's a fundamental design fault of putting 2 members  of the aluminium frame together with a film sealant which is not man enough to survive flexing in operation.

You have to shell out £2k to a dealer which gives you a 2- year warranty before it fails again and decimates your resale value.

The  new unit does work!

[vRSG60]

Well I've tried Captain Tolley and guess what, it still leaks. A new sunroof is out of the question, I don't have that sort of money.

[Robjon]

17 minutes ago, vRSG60 said:

A new sunroof is out of the question, I don't have that sort of money.

 

I feel for you.  If it were mine I would remove the fuse for the sunroof, then place helicopter tape over the joint between sunroof and car body.  Probably the easiest and cheapest 'cure'.

[vRSG60]

I do think though that due to the damp atmosphere the Captain Tolley isn't curing properly. The leak actually looks milky. The next step for me is black silicon sealant  across the join to see if that helps.

It hasn't actually rained that hard, just an overnight drizel & I was quite surprised to see it leak again. 😪

 

The starange thing is that I've spoken to the previous qowner who said he'd never had a problem with a leak althiugh he'd only opened the roof a couple of times during his years ownership.

Edited 24 December, 2021 by vRSG60

[muppix]

1 hour ago, Robjon said:

 

If it were mine I would remove the fuse for the sunroof, then place helicopter tape over the joint between sunroof and car body.  Probably the easiest and cheapest 'cure'.

 

I thought about that, but decided that any externally applied film will ultimately get brittle and crack because there’s an air gap where the roof seal meets the car body, and because the sunroof actually jumps up and down each time you close a door. For the price of some tape it’s probably worth a go, but I’d be worried about my paintwork when it’s time to remove that tape. 

 

Another option would be to ‘glue’ the sunroof in permanently with the kind of gunk they use to fit windscreens, but that sounds like a messy one-way trip with no guarantee of success.

[Stubod]

..mine had a very minor leak (front left), that only let in a few drops of water after a really heavy shower, (didn't even wet the carpet but noted a few drips by the bonnet release catch). I took it to our local indy who took off the a pillar covers and found that the front left drain pipe had been "squashed" by an overtight cable tie fixing. (ie excess water was not able to drain away quickly enough).

He replaced this and also detached and re-sealed the other drain pipes. This seemed to do the trick, however rather than "hope" I also applied clear gorrilla tape around all the sunroof but only as far as the rubber seal, ie not on any paintwork. (I never have the sunroof open anyway)....after 2 years so far so good?!