Silly question #22: Debating the merits of sunroofs

Tuesday, 28 November 2017

Aaah - sunroofs. They can be wonderful on a beautiful sunny day or on a starry summer night - you roll back the glass and experience all the smells, sounds and skyward views on offer as your car cruises through the city or the countryside. And they look great, too.

Oooh - sunroofs. They're nothing but a pain in the neck - literally. When they are open you have to crane your head backwards to get any view, when you should in fact be concentrating on driving. And not only can they add to the purchase and maintenance cost of any car, but they can take up valuable headroom.

Here's a great use for a sunroof - for fun photographs.

So are sunroofs useful or useless?

The head would tell you that they're pretty darned useless. Why would you want to chop a hole in the roof of any car when you're already surrounded by holes (called windows) that are filled with glass, most of which you can wind down and up anyway?

Not only that, but you can only open a sunroof when its not raining or cold. Then when those conditions are right and you can slide open the roof, it all plays havoc with your car's aerodynamics and your fuel cost will rise. Talking about fuel, the extra weight of a sunroof can also add to average fuel consumption figures. And let's not even begin to think about the expense of repairing a sunroof if its electrics break down.

* Silly car question #12: how should I hold a steering wheel?

* Silly Car Question #10: How do I refuel my car?**

But the heart would tell you that sunroofs are cool in more ways than one. They're cool because most times they are used is on hot sunny days when there's nothing better than fresh air and sunshine pouring in from that cavity above your head. And they look cool too - they give any car a more sophisticated and expensive look.

And here's some useless information. Some people say that mobile phone reception is superior in a vehicle with a sunroof, because a car with a completely enclosed roof gets in the way of the signal. We're not saying if that is right or wrong - we're just saying….

So back to the silly question: are sunroofs useful or useless?

Actually, they're a bit useless in that they don't add to the efficiency of any car. They don't control interior temperatures like air conditioning does, they don't contribute to overall visibility like windows do, they impact on available headroom, they are potentially expensive to maintain, and when open they can play havoc with fuel consumption.

But then again items such as alloy wheels, tinted glass and leather upholstery are useless too, in that don't add at all to the efficiency of a motor vehicle. But wouldn't we love to have all that stuff aboard our cars?