11 hours ago, Tim1631 said:

 

Erm, no!

What ? are Toyota vehicles   not dull or not more reliable than VAG group vehicles ? In my view VAG engineer vehicles for a short life suited to fast consumer turnover, for example leasing or PCP deals. Whatever I own two VAG vehicles and no Toyotas so I am prepared to favour ownership enjoyment over reliability , it's a pity I can't have both with VAG vehicles?

You have a bit idealistic impression of Toyota, exactly because you haven't owned one. For a long long time they don't shine as before, actually, nowadays differences between cars are not that much as used to be. You trade some package of pros and cons, to the which suits you best.

 

I have either  owned been provided with (work) or  driven   a number of Toyota , BMW,  Mazda , Ford , Vauxhall and VAG group vehicles over many thousands of miles . Thankfully now I only drive for pleasure!  I am just quoting from a long life of waiting in various dealerships for these cars to be repaired  or having build faults  corrected under warranty. I  have spent much less time dealing with issues with Toyota vehicles than the other marques , but found them to be rather dull to drive  . I just prefer VAG vehicles as so many characteristics about them are right. Just my view,  but c'est la vie! Enjoy your Skoda  I do!

I also got a demo car that came with a PR I did not value. Does anybody know if anyone has simply sealed the roof with a modern Foil or a 1970s type vinyl roof? On the face of it would seem to be a low cost option to the problem? Aesthetics aside.

Edited 5 August, 20205 yr by GreenMachine1.6
final comment

On 05/08/2020 at 14:15, GreenMachine1.6 said:

I also got a demo car that came with a PR I did not value. Does anybody know if anyone has simply sealed the roof with a modern Foil or a 1970s type vinyl roof? On the face of it would seem to be a low cost option to the problem? Aesthetics aside.

 

I encountered a few people who had just temporarily sealed it up with gaffa tape while trying to deal with their leaks - It looked a bit 'obvious' if im putting it kindly and I imagine this is temporary at best - although also saw one person who had used helicopter tape for the same job which i would imagine is a lot harder wearing and a more permanent solution. There's also several youtube videos out there of people sealing up sunroofs with sealant although that seems a bit extreme to me.

 

If you were to try and seal it I would first  look into whether it is possible to disable the roof by yanking the fuse etc - last thing you would want is the roof being accidentally opened by someone when its been sealed shut 😬  

Just as an added point, yesterday while using the roof i noticed that the actual back and forth motion along the runners was nice and smooth from where i had applied the grease, however there was quite a noticeable groan when the actual panel first lifts up.

 

There are two hinges/arms at the front and rear of the moving glass panel on both sides - this morning i have given these a little squirt with some silicone lubricant, being careful not to get any on rubber surfaces. Having left this to work its way in, this seems to have cured the noise and the roof is moving smoothly in all directions. In future i would probably use a dry PTFE type lubricant rather than Silicone spray as i understand this attracts less dirt - however i didn't have any in the shed but did have a can of silicone spray, for a one off application I think it should be okay.

 

One thing i would say is a lot of people on the 'net seem to advocate the use of Vaseline or white lithium for lubricating sunroof runners and mechanisms - to me Vaseline would be a big no-no because the petroleum content will attack any rubber. Likewise my experience of lithium grease on bonnet and door catches is that it attracts a lot of dust and dirt and if not removed and reapplied regularly tends to clag up eventually leading to sticking.

 

In the interest of completeness and trying to put everything i have found in once place, over the weekend I will post details of my water leak, diagnosis and fix -- bit busy right now though, screaming newborn!

On 04/08/2020 at 08:29, BigJakk said:

 

Quoted out of context (maybe i should become a journalist?) but that would be my overall advice!

 

I kick myself a bit as I've never previously owned a car with a sunroof as any kind as i personally find them a bit redundant nowadays when A/C is pretty much universally standard. Likewise cabriolets have never been of any interest to me.
I would certainly never spec one on a new car, it just happened to be that this car came up and happened to have one. I will certainly NEVER be buying another car with one.

 

Its only once you dive into it you realize just how many potential flaws and problems there can be with these things and the maintenance requirements and the costs should repair become necessary -- when mine started leaking a few days after purchase i seriously worried it was going to be a case of getting rid of the car. Since having it repaired I will be watching it like a hawk and in my gut i cant help feel that this car wont be around long term once it has been paid off.

I love those panoramic sunroof because they are really cool. The Tracy Island way they open up is oddly satisfying to watch. But the potential problems with them were a big turn-off for me.

Thanks for an excellent series of posts on your experiences with yours.  👍

So,

 

Just to cover the issue i had with my roof leaking. I had only owned the car a couple of days having bought it from a really good mate. My drive has a bit of an incline and after a heavy downpour I found water in both foot wells and traces of water emerging around the bonnet release in the passenger foot well. The Octavia 3 is very well put together and the interior trim is a bit of a pain to get apart, but removing the A-Pillar trims i found water travelling down the A pillars so knew it was coming from the roof.  I checked and cleared the drainage tubes as above to no avail - unfortunately my trim tools wouldn't allow me to drop the headliner and i didn't really want to get into that on my driveway, so booked it into a my local VW specialist.

 

I wet vacced a couple of litres of water out of the carpets -  they didn't need lifting, been there done that before on a fiesta and it would have been a nightmare, fortunately this coincided with a little two day heatwave and I managed to get it well dried. Shampooed the carpets with some biological washing powder, hit it with a steam cleaner and then air freshener and everything came up well with no nasty pongs.

 

My local VW place were spot on - stripped the headliner and water tested it,  confirming that water was getting in from the roof. They acknowledged this wasn't their usual work and suggested i contact Skoda for any recalls or TPI's for a known issue. My two local Skoda dealerships were totally useless and said there were no known issues. In the meantime my VW independent had been in touch with a friendly bod at Audi Technical who had found a TPI directly linked to my VIN for a panoramic roof fault - sums up dealerships for you IMO.

 

The TPI related to the seal between the bodywork and roof failing, leading to body corrosion - they could find no evidence of any corrosion but suggested it may be worthwhile as the roof would have to come out to replace the seal and this may allow for a thorough look for any further issues, so i asked them to go ahead. In the meantime i spoke with a fellow member on here who had a similar issue and had DIY'ed it, having removed the roof and found that part of the boding has failed and needed renewing.

 

Funnily enough, when i went back to my garage, they also mentioned that they had water tested the roof out of the car and had found the bonding had failed between the roof and the plastic tray which it is supposed to be bonded to. They renewed the bonding, water tested it on the bench and there were no leaks. They then fitted the new seal, refitted the roof and water tested on the car - no leak.

 

Touch wood a couple of months later there have been no issues - I regularly check the carpets for damp and have whipped the a pillar trims off a couple of times since to find it bone dry.

 

I cant say exactly where they have bonded, however when lubricating the mechanism the other weeks i noticed a couple of spots of tiger seal or similar just ahead of the wind deflector hinges - this 100% wasn't there before the garage did the work, so it seems a good shout for the location of the leak - i have attached a couple of images should it assist anyone.

 

Hopefully I never have any more issues and don't need to learn anymore about these panoramic roofs - hopefully what i have experienced will be of use to some of you though.

 

Cheers folks

 

 

 

 

On 04/08/2020 at 09:22, Gasconman said:

Well a huge thank you to you BigJakk for going to so much trouble to provide some very interesting information. I think I'll leave mine alone as it doesn't seem to bear much resemblance to the graphic you posted from the workshop manual. I think maybe my roof is a different design?

 

 

 You have an estate and BigJakk's post refers to the pano roof of a saloon car 🙂

Yep, mine is an estate too - I think hence my initial confusion over the directions in the workshop manual.

 

it'sa bit annoying that those are the only details in the workshop manual (i.e. no details specific to the estate) however I have no idea when that version of the manual was published.

 

As per my posts above, I've found that greasing the rails the roof moves on and the hinges seems to be what is required - makes sense really, metal on metal contact - roof operation is now noticeably quieter and smoother.

 

Keeping on top of the drains and the rubber roof seals is also just as important.

Hello everyone,

how is it possible for water to get into the lower area of the draft deflector (see attached photos)? 
If the water passes between the body/glass seal of the panoramic roof and arrives in the drainage duct where it then exits through the drainage holes, it should not be able to enter where the draft deflector is. 
I don't understand what's causing it.

 

Thanks,

Daniel