NHTSA Complaint #11441438 — 2011 GMC TERRAIN

The failure point was the seal on the sunroof and the sunroof itself. A correct failure mode would be for it to leak into the cabin thus being immediately visable. Instead, an internal seal apparently failed allowing the intruding water to flow unobserved into the bulkhead region between the car body and the internal liner of the vehicle. As a consequence it flowed down a side post exiting into the dashboard and control panel. The dashboard shorted out elliminating the turn signal indicator (and possibly the turn signal itself). The radio and amplifier and the general alarm system went to maximum volume. Fortunately, it did not short out the airbag, thus it did not deploy while I was on the freeway, maybe next time. The salient point is that water was allowed to intrude through the sunroof and able to proceed unobserved to the back of the dashboard. The inside of the car was removed and replaced as was the major components behind the dashboard. The airbags were not replaced.