I don’t recall owning a car that didn’t have a sunroof. But it is seldom used. It’s too loud for highway use. Too hot for summers. Nice fall days is when I enjoy it most often.
After a quick count, my wife and I had at least 14 cars over the years. I have never had a sunroof leak.
Except for the convertible, I’ve never owned a car w/o one; it’s a hard requirement for me in any new car.
I’ve done this too, and stopped after one to many surprise thunderstorms.
Be careful of carwashes too.
My current and previous cars came with them because it was part of a package/model where I needed the other stuff. I didn’t want the sunroof. Seriously. It’s something I really don’t need and just another point of possible failure. I negotiated the price down because of that.
My Wife is the same. We use her car for road trips. Opened it once going through a deep winding canyon. Way too distracting for the driver.
Oh. I have moved the sun shade back on mine to make sure a load on the roof looks good. So I guess there is that.
When I got my car three years ago, it wasn’t mentioned (or I overlooked) that it had a sunroof.
I opened it once on Day 1 with the car, to familiarize myself with the controls. Since then, not once.
On my first car, which I had for 10 years, it was a moonroof with a manual sliding panel. I think I opened it once, also.
Nearly half the cars I’ve owned have been convertibles, and I’ve owned numerous motorcycles. I enjoy driving while exposed to the elements. Because of that, I almost never use a sunroof; it’s frustrating, like watching an Imax movie on my phone. My current car is an SUV with a panoramic sunroof, and that sucker has never been opened.
It came with my vehicle, and I use it very rarely – mostly to let out hot air after sitting in a parking lot for hours in the summer. But it probably lets more heat escape in the winter, because they never shut airtight. Overall, I’d guess that the net effect annually is a negative.
So, everyone who NEVER uses their sunroof, when you get in your car, on a very hot, sunny day, you DON’T immediately open the sunroof so all that hot, stale air can instantly escape?
Instead, you turn on the air con and wait for it to overwhelm the hot, canned air inside the vehicle?
I will from now on, just never thought about it. I tried driving with it open when I first got the car but didn’t like it and haven’t thought about it since
We don’t have one now, but it last two cars had sun roofs. I didn’t find it all that phenomenally useful for cooling the car. The whole thermal mass of the car gets hot, not just the air inside. Replacing all the air doesn’t cool it nearly as much as I’d like.
But of course i opened it when the car was hot.
I loved the huge window aspect. More sunlight is good.
I cracked it from time to time while driving.
Ours never leaked, unless we accidentally left it open.
I’ll use it once in a while to clear out hot air.
I only have it because I got a discount on a vehicle purchased off of the dealer lot. It’s just another thing to break down (experience speaking here). And the mechanism steals away headroom. (I’m tall and like to sit upright - so every inch of headroom is important to me.)
No, I just crack the two front door windows for a minute or two. The controls for them are just under my left hand. No reaching up to try and find the control on the roof console. And the once or twice I tried using the moon roof for cooling, it was no faster than using the windows.
My last two cars have had moon roofs, but aside from trying out the controls to see how they work, I’ve literally never used them while driving. I don’t even think about them. For me it’s a completely pointless accessory. I’ve never had one leak, though.
My husband’s car has one and honestly, I think we forget it’s there. In the extreme summer heat, I’d remind him to leave it open when we park for any amount of time, just to keep the car from getting too hot, but he never thinks of it himself. We just drove to FL and back last week, and it never once occurred to us that we could get light from above.
Well, I don’t experience very hot days, but in the 4Runner I own, I can quickly roll down 4 windows and it has a window in the tailgate as well. I can roll all those down in about 3 seconds. Same effect.
I don’t use AC very often. Ambient air temp is usually good enough.
Though I have used the sun roof too. Another thing I will use if for - If my dogs are in the car for a few minutes while I run into a store, I’ll crack all of them about 4 inches.
Wasn’t sure how to vote. I keep the shade pulled back all the time; I only close it if a passenger asks me to. I also open the sunroof pretty much anytime I open the windows, and sometimes I open just the sunroof. On a road where I can do at least 40mph, sometimes it’s too much to have the windows down, but having the sunroof open is just right.
I used to long for a convertible. Now that I’ve had a chance to ride in a few, I realize just how narrow the weather window has to be, and how slowly you have to be driving, for it to be enjoyable. But a sunroof has a much wider range, and is almost as fun. Plus my hair doesn’t get hopelessly tangled.
I may be one of the more hardcore convertible-philes, but with the the heated seats, modern powerful heating and cooling, and with the popup wind blocker behind the seats, I’m good from about 45F to 95F, and up to about 90MPH. Pretty much the only time I don’t put the top down is when it’s raining, or if it’s a very short trip.
As far a sunroofs go, the only car I’ve owned (not counting wife’s car) with a sunroof would be my beloved, dearly departed RX-7 with the manual sunroof. I typically had the panel removed and tucked away in the back in any weather about 60F.
To add another data point, my wife, typically likes the sunroof tilted open for ventilation, but not retracted. Her current car has a full glass roof, so she no longer has that option.
I turn on the AC before I get out of the car when I get to work. When I leave in the afternoon, I use my remote start a few minutes before I head out and when I get in the car is nice and cool.
I just open the rear windows and it cools off the car pretty quickly. But then I do not live in a place where the temperature gets into the 90F/32C+ range all that often. I also park in a garage at home and in a garage at work, so even on hot days I don’t need to cool off the car. On the odd occasion my car is parked outdoors for an extended period, I use the method outlined above.
In 35+ years of driving I have had a car with a sunroof for about 10 years. I’m pretty sure I haven’t opened the sun roof more than 10 times in those ten years.
The only reason I bought cars with sunroofs is because the trim level I wanted had a sunroof included, not because I wanted a sunroof. Technically they were both moonroofs not sunroofs, but I don’t even know what the difference is.
Yes, that is about it. They sound so wonderful, but I rarely use them.