Sun Roofs
 

We have had some lovely warm and sunny weather recently and at such times when driing the Saxo I like to drop a window or two (or three or four) and open up the excellent sun roof. It was on just such an occasion the other day when I noticed that pretty well nobody else out on the roads had one; a few open soft-tops, yes, but no sun roofs. Anyone know if there is a reason why this (what I think is a) great car feature fell out of favour ?

Sun Roofs
 

Probably should be all one word - sunroofs.

Add weight to the roof of the car, reduce shell strength, can leak with age, plus most people just spec air con these days. Panoramic roofs with windscreens that extend half way into the roof are the new sunroof it seems

I know my own reasons.

From experience, I have seen many sunroofs fail (leak), and only one of all those cars did not fail. My brother had a sunroof motor gone dead and stuck open, £400. Aircon says I'm not bothered.

I must say I have had four cars in the past with sunroofs and have never had even a hint of a problem with any of them though maybe I have been lucky with that from the points you've made here. I do wonder what was the main driver for their fall from grace: regulation, fashion, practicality/reliability or some combination of one or more of those.

How long have you kept those cars for... Keep a car long enough, and the sun roof will fail.

Not at all. They were all scrapped basically from old age still with working and good sunroofs. Just my experience though, as I said, maybe I'm I've been lucky.

I always thought sun roofs were phased out in favour of air conditioning. When air con became widely fitted to most vehicles there was less of a need to let in extra air in to the cabin. Sun roofs are also heavy and expensive to fit compared to a standard roof skin, so I can see why manufacturers stopped fitting them over time.