Trying to determine if I should sell/trade in my 2001 Legacy GT. Cost of moonroof repair will be the deciding factor.

It depends on where and why it's leaking. If the drains are plugged at all, it can cause the assembly to overflow and leak. The assembly itself could be leaking at the seams like I thought mine was. Tured out, it was leaking between the glass and the perimeter seal. Swapped the glass section over and it's been fine since.

 

The sunroof drains come out behind the fender plastic behind the front tires. The rear drains come out just behind the rear tires. Usually compressed air is necessary to clear them but sometimes you can get lucky just by cleaned the dirt away from the ends of the drains.

After that, it's a new assembly and/or new glass.

1.   What he said - make sure the drain nozzles are attached to the tubes.  And make sure they're clean at the top and bottom (compressed air is probably ideal here).

 

2.  If the sunroof glass seal (the rubber going around the glass) is damaged I buy an entire used one for $35-$100 all day long:
www.car-part.com

 

If it's just the glass seal - just swap the glass only, those are really easy to swap out, a matter of minutes.  A shop should not charge much at all. 

 

They can get damaged if people put something up there - like mounted on the roof or run a cable through it (antenna...?), I don't know what people put up there but i've seen it - the gaskets get "notched" or even cut lightly on purpose.  You can't buy gaskets, so just get a used glass that hasn't been cut/damaged in that way.

 

They don't fail enough, and they're so easy to replace, that buying new is pointless.

 

3.  If it's leaking due to rust - then you should post a picture before we can say specifically but that would be the most likely "time to move on" scenario.

eBrowning,

 

It depends on what kind of a leak you have. We really need more information to diagnose the issue.

 

If all you have is small amounts of dripping water from the overhead console lights during turns, then that fix is an easy DIY fix for that generation of Subie Outback Wgn. If it is your issue, get back to us and I'll describe the problem and the fix.

 

If the water leak is from some other area, the guys have already described the fixes needed. As well, on older subies, I have seen the plastic drain tubes split right at the end of the roof rain channel, allowing water to come in. That requires the headliner to be pulled down, the drain tubes cut past the split and then sealed back onto the drain end pipe on the rain channel.