With her phone aimed at the ceiling of her Subaru Crosstrek, @bbell1017 points a finger at a dark, reddish brown band soaked into the pale headliner above the front passenger door. “This is not mold,” she says. “I live in Georgia, so I’m pretty sure that’s red clay, but all of this is wet.”
The clip opens with her question from the driver’s seat: “So was someone gonna tell me that if you have a sunroof, there’s a sunroof drain? And if you don’t regularly check it, you could potentially flood the interior of your car? Cause no one told me.”
The stain starts beside the passenger sun visor and runs back along the edge of the roof lining, with a ragged, drip shaped edge. She laughs through most of the 43 seconds and ends with both hands on her forehead. After finding the water she went looking online, she says, and other owners told her that with a Subaru “this is like something you should look out for.” Her defense: “This is the first time I’ve ever had a sunroof in a car of mine.”
Her caption, “Distraught is an understatement,” carries an edit added later: “I now know it’s a regular thing to maintain NOW that this has happened.” She adds that “the drain hose is not common knowledge” and that she will “own up to a little bit of ignorance but I’m trying to do better for my car.”
Where the Drain She Is Talking About Sits
A sunroof is not sealed like a windshield. The glass closes over a shallow tray built to catch the water that gets past the rubber seal. That tray has a small drain hole in its corners, and each hole feeds a hose that runs down inside a roof pillar and empties under the car. When a hole or hose is blocked, the tray fills and overflows into the roof lining, which is the part of the car she is pointing at.
How to Check Yours Before the Next Rain
Find the holes. Open the sunroof all the way, stand on the door sill and look into the front corners of the tray around the opening. Each drain is a small round hole. Wipe out any leaves, seeds and grit you can reach with a rag.
Test with a cup of water. Pour slowly into the tray next to one hole, never toward the cabin. The water should vanish down the hole and drip onto the ground near the front wheel on that side within a few seconds. Repeat on the other side, and at the rear corners if your roof has drains there. Water that pools or rises means that drain is blocked.
Clear it gently. Feed a length of plastic string trimmer line down the hole, work it back and forth, then pour water again. Skip stiff wire, which can puncture the hose, and skip a high pressure air gun, which can pop the hose off its fitting behind the trim. If the line will not go through, ask a shop to clear and water test every drain, not only the one that leaked.
Put it on a schedule. She now calls it “a regular thing to maintain.” The ground around her car in the video is covered in fallen leaves, and that is the time of year to run the cup test. Do it again in spring and any time the car has sat under trees for weeks.
If the Roof Lining Is Already Wet
Clear the drain first. Drying a car that will take on water again in the next storm wastes the effort.
Follow the water down. A stain like hers shows only where the water surfaced. Press a dry paper towel against the pillar trim on that side, then lift the floor mat and press it into the carpet underneath. Water from an overflowing tray travels down the pillar and collects in the footwell padding, which stays wet long after the surface feels dry.
Blot the lining, do not scrub it. Headliner fabric is glued to a backing board, and rubbing a wet patch can pull it loose. Press with clean towels, then leave the windows cracked in a garage or run a fan through an open door until everything is dry to the touch.
Photograph it before you clean. A dated picture of the stain, like the frames in her video, gives a shop or an insurer something to work from if the damage goes further than the fabric.