Roof Gasket Issue

I have a new 2016 GTI. After purchase I noticed that one of the roof gaskets is misaligned. The local dealer says there is no solution rather than cutting open the roof and that the issue is merely cosmetic. They noted several cars on the lot with similar problem. Has anyone had this problem and/or found a solution?

Thanks,

Ken

What area of the roof is this picture showing? It is fairly close up so I am having trouble orienting to it. Is the gasket you are talking about on the sunroof panel or opening?

When I got my car in October, I posted about one issue I observed with the gasket / weatherseal on the rear edge of the sunroof panel close to the driver's side corner. It has a "dent" in it that looks similar to what you would see if you pressed your thumbnail into an orange or apple skin, with a tiny slit in it. The gasket is dark colored so I did not notice the small divot at purchase time, couldn't see it until the car got dirty enough that dust showed the contrast. The next time I went by the dealership I asked the service advisor guy to check it out, he said as long as it was not leaking he would recommend "watch and see if it gets any larger".

So far it has not caused any problems, I have driven in some fairly heavy rain and not had any observable leaks.

Is that the felt?

It's not at the sunroof. It's part of the roof by the passenger door. It's a rubber gasket. All the new GTI have it. What purpose it serves I don't know.

The car has now developed loud wind noise at highway speeds. This is definitely air escaping from internal pressure. The noise increases when he speed increases. it also increases when the air conditioner air flow is increased. It looks like the gaskets may be related to the sunroom. You can see these comparisons that at the back side the gasket is misaligned by the sunroof as well.

The dealership told me previously that it was cosmetic, would not cause noise, and could not be fixed without cutting into the sheetmetal. Surely the gaskets can be replaced without devaluing the car. Does anyone have experience with this or similar issues?

You need to take some pictures where it is zoomed out. I can't tell where that is from the pictures.

On my GTI, I don't have any felt on the roof.

Only think I can think of is that you have a 4 door and this is the gasket that is between the rear door and the front door?

If so that can definitely be removed.

These gaskets are not felt. They are rubber. This is a 4 door. Making things worse, the problem seems to be temperature dependent. Now it's 80 degrees today in Houston and the noise is gone. Fortunately I took several recordings of it. I'm going to need to research and educate the dealership on how to replace the gaskets. I've already called VW and asked that they have an engineer speak with the dealership.

I was able to find this that seems to indicate the parts in number 18:
https://parts.vw.com/a/Volkswagen_2...505_6786123/FROM-3012015-SUNROOF/9282468.html

Need to find instructions.

Looking at your last picture, the gasket on my GTI looks similar to the right-hand photo. The area where mine has the small dent in it, is immediately to the left of the reflection of your finger (the cut off one) in your last picture.

I posted about it on the forum here a few months back, but nobody mentioned similar issues. When I took mine to the dealer and had a service tech look at it, he told me the gaskets could be replaced, he made no mention at all of cutting sheet metal. Since mine was not leaking (appears to be cosmetic only) he recommended against repairing it "until I had to" since replacing the gaskets might increase the probability of a leak problem.

If it aint broke....

Ken2016GTI said:

These gaskets are not felt. They are rubber. This is a 4 door. Making things worse, the problem seems to be temperature dependent. Now it's 80 degrees today in Houston and the noise is gone. Fortunately I took several recordings of it. I'm going to need to research and educate the dealership on how to replace the gaskets. I've already called VW and asked that they have an engineer speak with the dealership.

I was able to find this that seems to indicate the parts in number 18:
https://parts.vw.com/a/Volkswagen_2...505_6786123/FROM-3012015-SUNROOF/9282468.html

Need to find instructions.

Click to expand...

Don't fix it!

There is another thread on sunroof issues that might be of interest, it describes repairs in a detailed TSB for another issue (cracks in the water channel) but does not seem to involve any roof sheet metal butchery....

http://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?p=381555#post381555