Sunroof Journal - Voyage of Discovery

[jonesyUK 0]

My Sunroof Journal

 

Well, as many of you on here I am also having sunroof difficulties and thought as a bit of light relief from the swearing I would begin to write about my fantastic journey of discovery towards trying to fix it. I do not consider myself to be an experienced mechanic but competent with a Haynes manual and able to read a wiring diagram. My first post contains what has happened so far and may help some of the rest of you I hope.

 

Day 1

 

Bought N reg. 2.0 16V, Blackberry with 150 000 on the clock full VW service for 12 years, only 2 owners and a new Clifford alarm (Concept 650) just installed. In really good nick. On buying it am told sunroof opens but doesn’t close. If you knock it accidently there’s a winder under there, dubious Norfolk man tells me pointing at the roof. Very pleased with car but steer clear of fiddling with sunroof for now and enjoy just driving for 4 weeks

 

Day 25ish

 

As I am now off work for 6 weeks (perks of teaching) decide to think about having a look at that sunroof. But its raining so I get back to tiling the bathroom

 

Day 40

 

Weather has been crap all summer so haven’t really thought about sunroof but decide to give it a try. JOY OF JOYS it opens closes and lifts up. Very happy. 1 minute later swearing with sunroof stuck open, pressing close button to no avail. Prise down interior lighting unit, undo 2 screws into ceiling and remove wiring. Find the “winder” and wind it in. All feels good to me, certainly nothing wrong with mechanism anyway. Screw it all back up and give up that day.

 

Day 41

 

Back to it. This time decide to “use the search” as I have seen frequently on this forum but don’t find anything particularly useful other than a 4 page PDF of how to replace entire sunroof. Hoping this is not what I have to do. So… removed sunroof motor, only 2 screws and took indoors. Took apart mechanism, regreased everything looked for broken plastic cogs but see none. Looked for signs of rust, corrosion or anything obviously broken. Nothing. Put everything back together again. Refitted. Sunroof opens put doesn’t close or lift. DAMN

 

Day 42

 

Decided to be logical. Maybe it’s a problem with the switch I think. Currently when I press open there is a definite click from the relays in the motor and the sunroof opens. When I press close or lift there is usually nothing other than the microswitches in the switch clicking. Occasionally, 1:50 the relays in the motor do click when I press close or lift but nothing happens and even less frequently it does actually close and lift with buttons but this usually lasts for about 30 seconds before dashing my hopes again.

 

Anyway, removed sunrood switch from lighting surround. Prised off its cover. All looks well. Reattached and pressed microswitches with finger. Sunroof opens but doesn’t close or lift. Swapped microswitches around. No change.

 

Bypass switch I think. Piece of wire and connector that plugs into sunroof switch. There are 4 wires going to the sunroof switch. Try connecting up pairs of wires. Find the 2 that need to be connected to open sunroof however, despite connecting all others in different combos with the piece of wire (not a good idea I know) sunroof doesn’t close or lift. Refit everything and give up.

 

Day 49

 

A week later and after a few more searches on here decide to try regreasing all the guides / track of the sunroof mechanism to see if maybe it’s too stiff for the motor to close it. Apparently so I’ve read, it requires more force to close a sunroof than open it and there is some sort of safety cut off thing in the motor to stop it over heating should the effort get too great or something like that. Also found out that little triangle, plastic cover that goes over allen key hole is actually a switch itself and must be pushed back over allen key hole for sunroof to work. Stops motor working when you have allen key in hole, presumably to prevent you twatting yourself in the head or fingers (hasn't bl**dy helped me but hey).

 

Anyway. Open sunroof, stand on door sills and regrease everything copiously. Then open and close sunroof loads of times with the windy allen key. Sunroof still opens with switch but doesn’t close or lift. Feels like it’s moving more freely though. Refit everything and walk away.

 

Today.

 

Decide to bite the bullet and buy new switch and motor off of ebay. Well 2nd hand new anyway. Don’t think switch is broken but not sure, and it’s only £7.50. Motor hopefully about £25 including postage. Decide as it’s my birthday to clean and polish car (sad I know, but this is what you do when you reach 27. Mid 20s Crisis I feel. Will probably go out and get an earring next). Finished cleaning and halfway through applying polish when the heavens open. DOH! Chuck stuff in bucket and run in. Lock car with Clifford fob on way in and the EFFING Sunroof lifts!!!!! Unlock and lock car a few more times with fob and it still won’t drop down. Getting wet so run indoors. I HATE MY RADO SOMETIMES.

[Mystic Rado 0]

After I got my sun-roof mechanism repaired - it was broken - it would open and tilt, but not close. Turned out to be the motor. They get tired. Secondhand motor off someone on here sorted it immediately. Hopefully yours'll be as easy to sort out. Good luck :D

[coolrado 0]

if the sunroof is opening when you arm the alarm it sounds like the motor and mechanism are out of sequence, so when the sunroof is closed, it thinks its open and try's to close it, but opens it instead (now i'm confused) :lol:

 

it might be worth removing the motor mech, setting the motor to the closed possition, setting the sunroof to the closed possition and then put it back together.

[dr_mat 0]

Sounds like your sunroof control unit has the same problem that many others have reported (there's another thread mentioned it just a couple of days ago).

As you speculate, if you press the "close" and you *don't* hear a click, the control unit isn't even *trying* to move the motor. Therefore the problem MUST be electrical, and almost certainly in the control unit.

[Jim Bowen 1]

i bought my corrado, asked if the sunroof worked and was told its 100% fine, but i'm too worried to try, so a year later and i've never opened it :lol:

 

might be a bad thing now i think about it, would it of seized up do you think?

[dr_mat 0]

i bought my corrado, asked if the sunroof worked and was told its 100% fine, but i'm too worried to try, so a year later and i've never opened it :lol:

 

might be a bad thing now i think about it, would it of seized up do you think?

 

The sunroof guides are supposed to be greased at every service.

[Jim Bowen 1]

i doubt the garage i use do that :lol:

 

whats the worst that can happen if i try to open it?

[dr_mat 0]

whats the worst that can happen if i try to open it?

 

You could have your leg bitten off by a passing wolf?

 

You could have a heart attack because of the shock and surprise of something on your Corrado actually working as advertised?

[Jim Bowen 1]

lol

 

i know it tilts ok, just seen pics of big scratches on the roof when they jam, so never attempted it

[Jules 0]

lol that was mine that got sctratched....dont do it! I'm wishing we had left mine alone!

[vwdeviant 0]

Or.. do what I did when mine got scratched (by previous owner)

 

 

Chuck it and stick a Moonroof in... they make a mahoosive difference to the cabin Ambiance as well as "alledgedly" not breaking as much as Rado ones...

 

Grab teh wolf by the tail and have a go, only took us 3 hrs all in start to finish and that's two complete numpties changing it! :lol:

[jonesyUK 0]

RIght. Back from holiday. Left things with no improvement to sunroof since my attempts to fix it about 2 weeks ago. Have found cardboard box in my recycling box containing 2nd hamd motor off of ebay. I'm praying that the golf it came off wasn't ancient or had a number of owners who liked the feel of the wind in their hair! Can't be any worse than mine I'm thinking at the moment. Will try fitting it tomorrow at some point and will update on progress tomorrow... fingers crossed. New switch hasn't turned up yet although I'm really not at all convinced that the switch is the trouble maker. For the sake of £7.40 off ebay it will give me another option should the motor not make a difference.

[jonesyUK 0]

So... fitted the new sunroof motor. Reconnected everything, crossed fingers and prayed. Low and behold sunroof now opens, closes and lifts. BUT... I have to press the buttons over and over again repeatedly and watch it move about half a cm at a time. Eventually it stops working altogether and I have to leave things for a minute. I would say personally that this is a definite improvement. I now know that the switch is working fine. Now when I press any of the 3 buttons on the switch there is a definite click coming from each of the 3 corresponding relays in the motor.

 

My conclusions is therefore that at the moment the sunroof and mechanism for what ever reason is too stiff, even after regreasing everything I could get to easily. And that the motor is cutting out to avoid overheating or overloading itself. Can't see anything obviously broken though so not sure exactly where the problem lies without beginning to take it all apart. Having looked at the moonroof, I'm thinking that it looks like a good option.

[Mystic Rado 0]

It might still be worth trying a different motor. From memory the cut-out on the motor operates at quite a low level of resistance, so it may be that a fresher motor will have the ooomph to shift the roof, particularly if you can wind it easily backwards and forwards by hand.

[jonesyUK 0]

The trouble is that I don't know if it is moving freely or not. It doesn't feel too bad to me. It's certainly not scratching, scraping or making any bad noises. But then if I wound in someone elses sunroof, it might move more freely than mine. Haven't done this so I don't really know if mine is stiff or not. (No bad jokes please :? ) As I said earlier, nothing looks broken but I can't really be sure and buying another 2nd hand motor for £25 is no guarantee of getting it working is it? It'll just be pot luck.

[Mystic Rado 0]

The trouble is that I don't know if it is moving freely or not. It doesn't feel too bad to me. It's certainly not scratching, scraping or making any bad noises. But then if I wound in someone elses sunroof, it might move more freely than mine. Haven't done this so I don't really know if mine is stiff or not. (No bad jokes please :? ) As I said earlier, nothing looks broken but I can't really be sure and buying another 2nd hand motor for £25 is no guarantee of getting it working is it? It'll just be pot luck.

 

I guess so, ideally you want to borrow a motor which you know is working well on another car - I suppose the other way of looking at it is that if it is a tired motor then it doesn't matter what else you do, the motor will still be tired (he said, unhelpfully) :?

 

Look on the bright side, at least your mechanism seems to work okay, if the metal gizmos had broken, it'd be an infuriating roof out job.

[mikecb1 0]

JonesyUK

 

-just recently joined the group and picked up this thread.

 

I have a very similar fault on my 96 VR6. The roof worked fine until last summer, then in very hot weather it would slide open, but only close in short jerks. 1 jerk each push of the button. This has slowly got worse, and recently it would open, but only close when the weather was very cold. This week it opened, and stuck. Couldn't open or close it. Had to resort to the handle in the motor to close it. There are clicks from the motor area when I press any of the buttons, and sometimes the roof opens on the first push, but then won't work again. The roof is quite stiff to move with the handle (but how stiff should it be?).

 

This all sounds very similar to your fault, so I would be very interested indeed to know if you ever fixed it.

 

Mike

 

1996 Blackberry/black leather VR6 112k

[jonesyUK 0]

Well I'm back for an update. And no I haven't fixed it.....yet. I feel i've got to a point now where I've eliminated all other possibilities. The only possible problem must be the fact that the mechanism just isn't running smoothly enough any more. This is hardly surprising after 12 years of use though. I've started looking into getting a complete replacement sunroof from a breakers but I will post my findings soon. I'm sure it will be a fairly straight swap if I can find an appropriate fitting one.

[Dogzyboy 0]

I had pretty much the same problem with mine recently. It would open fine, but would not close & I heard no clicking from the switch. Eventually, after about 10mins of trying, it would close again. I got a used sunroof motor from a guy on here & it now works a treat, though obvbiously only until this motor has the same problem!!

 

Maybe the golf motors are different to the raddo ones and thats why it's not solved it completely for you?

[ianVR6 0]

Hi Jonesy

Similar problem with my sunroof. Mine wont budge in any direction anymore, have tried regreasing, and the relays are making all the right clicks. The only thing that i can come up with is that there must be some part of the mechanism that needs grease but is hidden in the roof, as it does feel stiff when I use the handle!

[MK1Campaign 0]

whats the worst that can happen if i try to open it?

 

You could have your leg bitten off by a passing wolf?

 

You could have a heart attack because of the shock and surprise of something on your Corrado actually working as advertised?

 

PMSL thats the funniest thing ive read all week :lol:

[Gangstarr 0]

Have you managed to have a good look at the arms either side that do the work , they have bits on em made out of monkey metal . Check both and make sure there is no obvious differences & also that there isnt anything stuck in channels . I hade the same problem and i removed a full sunroof out of another rado that i use for spares . Switched em round and tinkered with it for hours greesing it workin and aligning it opens and tilts and closes mint but as much as i tied couldnt get it to slide .