[Tennessee Steve]

So I've been procrastinating on tinkering with the Passat because for the last month it seems like it's either raining or dark by the time I get home from work, but I had a sunny Saturday evening last weekend and so I took some steps toward addressing some of the problems I'm having.
The first thing I did was I searched and found the drains for the sunroof (thanks for the tip a1979corvette). The videos I watched said they were either under the hood near the base of the A pillars or near the hinges for the front doors. By pouring water down the sunroof drains and tracing it as it leaked, however, I found mine to be up above the front tires. I had to take the fender liners off to get to them. They were pretty cruddy; hopefully my water problem inside the car will be fixed now. I plan to leave a space heater in there for a couple evenings to dry it out completely and then check it the next big rain we get to see if there is still water making its way inside the car.
The next thing I did was drop the fuel tank and pour out all the old fuel. Dropping the fuel tank turned loose all kinds of dirt and crud. I'm surprise and I little dismayed by how crunchy the body and frame of this thing are. After I dropped the tank, I saw that from the sending unit there are some short, black rubber hoses with metal crimps and fittings that run into the fuel lines. The rubber hose itself and the metal hardware are both looking like they need to be replaced. Also, I've talked about replacing the sending unit because of how rusty it is. Initially I didn't think a new sending unit would cost that much, but I should've paid closer attention to the picture results from my quick web search. There are '96 Passat sending units aplenty for both the 4 cylinder and 6 cylinder gas engines, but I've only found one sending unit that appears to fit for TDI, and it's on Ebay for $170. The one I pulled off mine looks pretty bad, so I think I'll still replace it, but it sucks to pay more than what I initially thought I'd have to.
I guess my next steps are to clean the fuel tank and reinstall it once I have a new sending unit to put in it and have replaced those short rubber fuel hoses. Also if the water leak problem is dealt with like I hope it is, maybe once I get the car dried out and cleaned the electronic accessories will start working consistently and I can put my doors back together.
Any tips or advice are appreciated. I may not reply to each and every comment so thanks in advance. Pictures I took after dropping the fuel tank are below.
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[dfdecook]

I also had a bad leak due to the sunroof tubes. During the investigation of the issue I found that the joints where the tube is attached to the sunroof frame was defective. There is a collar the goes around the tube and the collar is the part that actually attaches the tube assembly to the sunroof frame. The joint of collar to the tube is the actual failure mode where the water comes into the car. The water leakes out of the joint than runs down the outside of the tube then onto the carpet . Yes the tube could have been blocked at the bottom. But my guess would also be the bad joint at the top too. Unfortunately you have to drop the headliner to get access to the joint at the sunroof frame. This is a known issue. And there was a warranty issued to fix this issue on cars up to 2010.mine is a 2011 and they wouldn't help me. I tried to attach a picture of the joint but I couldn't. Hope the discrimination helps

 

[Tennessee Steve]

I also had a bad leak due to the sunroof tubes. During the investigation of the issue I found that the joints where the tube is attached to the sunroof frame was defective. There is a collar the goes around the tube and the collar is the part that actually attaches the tube assembly to the sunroof frame. The joint of collar to the tube is the actual failure mode where the water comes into the car. The water leakes out of the joint than runs down the outside of the tube then onto the carpet . Yes the tube could have been blocked at the bottom. But my guess would also be the bad joint at the top too. Unfortunately you have to drop the headliner to get access to the joint at the sunroof frame. This is a known issue. And there was a warranty issued to fix this issue on cars up to 2010.mine is a 2011 and they wouldn't help me. I tried to attach a picture of the joint but I couldn't. Hope the discrimination helps

Thanks I’ll check it out