Something strange happened earlier this morning in my Job 1 2008 FWD FEH (loaded with moonroof).

The story begins with me buying a used push lawnmower. I ran the mower for about 30 seconds to test the features and then haggled/chatted for about 5-10 minutes. Got a good price, paid, and folded up the handle where it easily fit in the back of the FEH. Nothing strange so far.

I drove back across town (15-20min at mostly highway speeds). In the beginning (back streets with lots of stops/turns, read:sloshing) I had the rear windows down due to the general lawnmower smell. After about 5 minutes I rolled up the window because it was a bit chilly and either the smell had mostly blown away or I had adjusted to it. In any case it wasn't bad. I don't think the wife would have complained if she had been there even. I've definitely road in work trucks with 10x the smell for twice as long without issue.

I had to stop off at an electronics store and I parked in the shade with all the windows up. I went in and was back in less than 10 minutes.

-Here's the interesting part-
When I turn the key forward the moon roof opened about 1/4 of the way (~3" inches) from the closed position, all by itself. I'm positive it was closed as the shade portion was drawn and you can't do that while it is open. Both the shade and the window open together if the shade is closed so it's rather noticeable when they move together.

After my initial confusion over why the moon roof would open itself, I immediately thought about the mower in the back. I didn't smell much (definitely not as strong as before and way less than I would worry about normally) but I rolled down the windows just in case.


Anyone have a theory (or better, documentation) as to why the moon roof opened itself? I'd love to say it was smart and was protecting me (and itself) from the fumes but there's no mention of that type of feature in the owners guide and I would have expected such a feature would have activated the power windows instead as not all FEH have moon roofs.

If it was a safety feature, wouldn't there have to be a air quality monitor somewhere the triggered such an event?

The only other scenario I can come up with is a malfunction in the moonroof controls and that would still be a pretty strange coincidence. After I rolled down the windows I was able to close and open and close the moonroof. I turned the switch off and back on and nothing happened moonroof wise.

Can the the FEH really be this smart?

 

Weird... I can't imagine that the car is that smart since probably less than 50% of FEHs have the sun roof package. Besides, what if it decided to open in the rain or something.

I've been on road trips with my biking buddies where it would be nice to have an automatic sun roof when the car detects bad smellls...