Thema sunroof drainage tubes

[Adam Sothcott]

Does anyone have any experience of unblocking these?

Is it a pig of a job?

Water dripping from osf corner of sunroof and osf grab handle blanking plate

Thanks in advance

Adam

[Leo Capaldi]

Hello,
The front ones are easy - never got to the rear ones.
Get a length of fairly stiff electrical cable ( about 2.5 mm diameter and push it down into the tube from the front corners of the roof aperture. With luck the cable will push all the way through to the other end. In my case (S3 LS Turbo) there are one-way valves at the end of the tubes (at base of screen pillars in the space where the heater inlet is). I removed those and inserted the cleaning cable from the lower end as well. I didn't bother replacing the valves and now there is a nice gurgling sound after heavy rainfall - this amuses passengers. For some reason the cable would not go all the way through the tubes however pushing from both ends cleared the blockage and I have had a dry seat ever since ( 3years ago).
Afterwards I poured some water down just to finish off.

The tubes for the rear (i think) run through the boot corners and down to underneath the car - haven't bothered with those.

Don't wear anything white when doing this!!

Leo

[Adam Sothcott]

Leo -

Thanks for that - will give it a go when the weather's better

Adam

[Brian Hilton]

Just one other point, if Loe's suggestion doesn't solve the problem, make sure that it isn't the rubber pipe come adrift from the sun roof drain tube, this is usually held by a clip, if you ease the headlining fixings & remove the grab handle you should be able to see. I had this problem with one of my Dedras although so far no trouble with my series 3 Thema