General ******* sunroof leaking again!!!!!!!

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General ******* sunroof leaking again!!!!!!!

jug

blessed are the apostates
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after almost a year of leak free driving the sunroof leak has returned. there's a small damp patch on the roof lining above my head and when i braked hard today i got a single drip that hit the steering wheel. :bang: :bang: :bang:

then to top it off i noticed 2 drips on the inside of the rear passenger side window. WTF?! thats a new one. the seal on the glass looks perfect, brand new even, so i dont know what to think about this :(
fingers crossed its just some water from the sunroof leak getting flung across the roof lining when i went round a roundabout.

this didnt happen on my first bravo when i used silicone so i can only assume this has happened because i used putty to fix the leak, and the hot weather we've had lately must have melted the putty. i thought this might happen when i used the putty, but i didnt have any silicone handy at the time so i took the chance.

i cant decide what to do, fix the leak (using silicone this time) or set fire to the arrogant italian bitch and watch her burn like she deserves to.
 
breath deeply:devil: i know how you feel...just had mine a month and the bloody thing is leaking...:cry: a tube of sealer will be attched to the bloody roof once this bloody rain stops:bang:
Its been terential rain up here in yorkshire and i have a damp patch and dripping from the passenger visor area and the drivers visor area.....

im pretty comfident that its all the sun roofs fault..rain will most probably find a trail to eventually drip from...just happens to be on both bloody sides....LOL:D i have to laugh or i would cry..
 
i cant decide what to do, fix the leak (using silicone this time) or set fire to the arrogant italian bitch and watch her burn like she deserves to.

The former is probably a more cost effective solution :) However the latter would probably make you feel 1000000x better right about now :devil:

I've considered the latter a few times since buying the Bravo.... but have so far resisted temptations :eek:
 
The only upside of all the aircon agro I have had is that there is no sunroof on the Marea thus neatly avoiding sunroof problems. :) However there is usually a drain system on sunroofs that can get blocked. I used to flush mine out once a year with caustic soda followed by lots of water. Once they are blocked it can be a pita to clear them. It may be that the water appearing on the rear window is leaking from the blocked drain. Often the drain exits near the firewall and/or the boot.
 
hello there mate,

was just having a look at this site cos iv got some cluth issues, and i saw your post as i was browsing through. Spray some furniture polish onto the seals of your sunroof. quite a bit, and all the way round. It makes the seals swell up and stops, or can stop leaks depending on how bad your seals are.

Just a thought mate, i know that it works.
 
nice to know I'm not the only one getting a soaking for this reason.
It strikes me that amidst all the leaky sunroofs, knackered rearwiper motors, broken rear wiper spray systems, and dodgy throttle response, we Bravo owners still love our cars. They have an admirable character and nice Italian lines which make up for having to constantly fix it another time. I just hope that the new Bravo has as much attention paid to the little things as the engine.
 
we Bravo owners still love our cars.

i think there's mainly 2 types of bravo owners, the really shallow ones who care about styling more than built quality and reliability, and then there's the budget owners who cant find a better deal for the same money. i'm both, a shallow man on a budget, so the bravo is perfect for me :D
 
the really shallow ones who care about styling more than built quality and reliability

IMO, the bravo/a is built just as well as the next Peugeot 306 if not better! and its quieter and more reffined. and the engines are better...1.6i 16v, 2.0 HGT and especially the JTD which is one of the best diesel engines in the world!
and also, reliability? my brava has NEVER broken down.
 
The equivalent Megane of the same age didn't have stupid little problems that Brava/os have. Most of them are easy DIY fixes (not for all though of course) but still, at least the equivalent Megane didn't have such faults. It's so easy to make rear wiper motors that work and door handles that don't perish, everybody else were 10 years ago so why weren't Fiat?

I couldn't get the performance/pound that I get from my JTD elsewhere though - thanks to depreciation :D
 
i didnt say Megane, i said 306 :p
lol im sure the Renault Megange had its fair share of small problems, but i see your point.

My 306's door cards kept falling off, the central locking gradually broke and sometimes it didnt want to start and he brakes didnt want to stop!
All common problem with Mk1 306s.

Maybe fiat had reasons in making the door handles from rubber? perhaps they are smoother than plastic ones, feel better, higher qualty at the time?
(or maybe rubber is just cheaper than plastic :p)
 
We've had 3 mk1 meganes in our family and not one had any silly faults along the same lines of a Brava. We've had 3 bravo/as in our family and each one has had the same stupid problems. That's pretty good experience for comparison. The Bravas have been reliable (well the two that had been looked after before we got them) but the Bravo is unreliable due a hard life - as you would expect. The Meganes of course were all reliable.

From this I feel that both the Megane and Brava/o are reasonably reliable in general but what is different between them is that the Brava/o is full of annoying little faults not present on the Megane Mk1. Why should a wiper motor break? It's absurd. It should be ok for 15 years and typical 150k mile use, without question. Even the sunroofs appear to be fine on Meganes.

I don't know about the 306 - not owned one.
 
Negotiator said:
the Brava/o is full of annoying little faults
thats my main problem, the faults are all the type of things you would not expect on a car from that era. nothing major, but also nothing that should happen on a car that has had decent research and development put into it.

distortionrockets said:
Maybe fiat had reasons in making the door handles from rubber? perhaps they are smoother than plastic ones, feel better, higher qualty at the time?
(or maybe rubber is just cheaper than plastic )

the reason is irrelevant (i'm sure there is one), whats important is that the materials you choose will last the expected life of the car. research and development is supposed to identify and avoid problems like this.
its not like fiat were breaking new ground, they've been making handles for a long time and should know about these things. same goes for sunroofs and wipers.

no matter what the reason, we can be sure that Fiat did not put the neccessary time and resources into the research and development of this range. the type of faults show that this is true.

my main concern is that current models such as the new bravo will also suffer from the same type of issues. reports have said the new bravo's development was done extremely quickly and occured largely on computers only (they're proud about this!!). in my mind that rings alarm bells and suggests the new bravo will be just as likely to suffer similar problems as the old bravo did.

time will tell.
 
It does mean however that they're cheaper for us. Show somebody a car with a leaking sunroof, a broken rear wiper (and washwipe of course as the tube has disconnected), faulty high level brake light bulbs (my current pet hate!), perished horrible looking door handles (knawed by a dog look), horrid green seats in the case of my car, poor headlights and so on and they won't want it.

Considering such items are true for many brava/os out there people just won't want them. People like us don't mind the odd bit of tinkering but the vast majority do and when the cars of a similar era don't have such intrinsic faults, it's obvious why. I am not saying you won't find a Megane or whatever out there without a broken wiper motor or a leaking sunroof but I am saying that they will be unique to how the car was looked after/abused/used etc. (or even luck) rather than a simple failure to design the car originally.
 
I have never had any stupid faults with my Bravo like the rear wiper. And yes the door handles perish if not looked after..but is that not the owners fault? I don't have a sunroof so i can't comment on that. how are faulty bulbs the fualt of the car? If the headlights are crap upgrade to polys! Before buying a car people should research the car, every car does have its faults. Why complain? If you hate the faults your car has just get a different one..its your choice to have the car in the first place!!

In a few years every car maker will be using this technology to design cars. It reduces the cost both to car maker and consumer and its a lot quicker. If it costs less money to design ultimatley products and materials used will be of better quality. Everything i have heard says the new Bravo is a step in the right direction. And it has to be said it looks a damn sight better than the Auris or Golf...look at the new Mondeo :yuck: :yuck:
 
I have never had any stupid faults with my Bravo like the rear wiper. And yes the door handles perish if not looked after..but is that not the owners fault? I don't have a sunroof so i can't comment on that. how are faulty bulbs the fualt of the car? If the headlights are crap upgrade to polys! Before buying a car people should research the car, every car does have its faults. Why complain? If you hate the faults your car has just get a different one..its your choice to have the car in the first place!!

3 bravo/as, 3 faulty wiper motors.
3 bravo/as, 3 disconnected rear wash wipes
1 bravo, perished door handles as if a dog has eaten it (other two are 2001 models so it's yet to come, excellent!)
2 bravas, high level brake light gone.
3 bravo/as, rubbish headlights
1 bravo, broken sunroof

3 cars, a 2001 1.2 16v, 2001 JTD and 2000 1.2 16v, all low mileage.

Don't try and patronise people suggesting they didn't know the faults before buying the car, I certainly did. The point being made quite clearly is that a similar car of the age such as a Megane does not have such intrinsic design faults.

I don't have a sunroof so i can't comment on that. how are faulty bulbs the fualt of the car? If the headlights are crap upgrade to polys!

It's the fault of the car since the car was designed in that way. 1 of 8 bulbs fails and you have to replace the strip of bulbs, nice one Fiat. Why couldn't you have spent an extra 3p per car and put indvidual bulb holders in? Renault did with their 1996 Megane.

Headlights are poor as standard and not so on the Mk1 or mk1.5 Megane, that's the point, not that there's an upgrade available if you want to spend another £50-100.

I don't quite understand the point of your post? It has faults but they can all be got around? Well that's what has been said time and time again in this thread but both Jug and I know these cars well enough to say that these intrinsic BASIC design faults lower the credibility of the cars.
 
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