So what gives? Have the Swiss forever been scared off due to the old wives tales of leaking sunroofs? You might say there isn't enough sun in CH, but I say all the more reason to have a window in the ceiling!
Looking to buy a new (used) car for the wife. We love diesel combi Volvos and would even go for a Ford Focus, and she would love a sunroof. I thought, no problem, I'll search Ricardo and Autoscout. My search params are Combi, Shaltgetriebe, Schiebedach(!), Diesel, ab MFK. After five weeks not a single one with a sunroof in our price range (under 10k.-). Ricardo doesn't even have a checkbox for "sunroof", but they do have one for "cupholders".
You’re not looking for the right model/make. I found 2 Nissan Qashqai Tekna diesels for around 10,000 on ricardo. Sunroof as standard.
Perhaps look for panoramadach.
Forgot to mention, I'm 6'5" and I have two kids in the back seat, so there has to be ample leg room. The V50 and Focus are the only mid-size cars thus far that have enough leg room in the rear when I slide my seat all the way back.
My husband is 6'5". We have a Hyundai i40, with panorama sunroof. I can sit in the back seat even if he's driving and I'm 5'4 (my BIL and my late FiL are/were roughly the same height as husband) and used to sitting in the back seat when we have tall visitors.
Though, that might not meet your other requirements. It's an incredibly dependable, boring car - i rather like it.
Are you talking about a glass roof or something you can open? If the latter, they largely died out in the 90s once we all got air conditioning.
If the former I'm pretty sure it was never an option on either Focus or (I think) V50
**RACKING BRAIN** I think you might be right on the V50 - although I would need to do more research on it. Either way the Volvo sunroof is pretty poor on the V70 anyway. Give me a 3-or 5-series panorama roof any day of the week - that is bloody lovely.
Just make sure you cover it in winter otherwise it takes forever to warm the cabin
Sunroofs aren't recommended for people with a long torso - as they impact on head room quite considerably.
If you are looking at the V50 avoid the 2.0D IMHO - it is shared by Ford and for much of its life delivers a relatively poor economy to performance ratio.
Have you tried a Qashqai? My OH’s 5’10" so has the seat quite a long way back and we still had room to have his mother in the back seat when his parents came to visit. Plenty of leg room and she had longer than normal legs for her height.
E-Class merc, a lot have sun roofs
If the sunroof is that important to you I would reconsider if it has to be a Diesel (do you drive a lot? do you drive a lot in neighbouring countries where Diesel is much less expensive than gasoline?) and a manual. Personally I have switched to automatic some years ago and I would never go back unless it was was for some fun sports car to be driven on weekends only. Stop-and-Go traffic is so much more relaxing with an automatic.
Depends entirely on the auto-box. The Geartronic (Aisin) in the Volvo's is woeful compared to similar offerings (based on model age) from the Germans. The problem with Volvos is that none of their gearboxes are particularly snappy.
I have no problems with autos in sportscars as long as they are well programmed.
As for "small" family estates IIRC the Octavia and Golf both came with a sunroof option.
Thanks for all the replies. I'm looking into aftermarket sunroofs now, the Mini Cooper style that slides up and out of the car to avoid losing headroom. The trouble with looking for a feature like this is it limits so many other options. I want 5L/100km, so it's probably going to need to be a manual gearbox diesel. I want a smaller car so my wife can park it easily but with enough legroom in front and back for family trips. So it looks like the sunroof is a pipe dream unless I just get it done later. I hear they're pretty good.