Volvo Sunroof Repair
I love my sunroof, but I hate it when something goes wrong with it. My last S60 had the sunroof busted by an errant football — that was $800 to repair, and thankfully someone else paid for it. I never had any problems with my current S60 until last week. I went out to get some dinner, and some time during the 1.5 mile drive home, something broke. The sunroof would barely close and would actually get stuck and reverse. Crap.
I took it out to the Volvo dealer where I bought the car and they looked at it for an hour and declared there was nothing wrong, the tracks just bind up after a while and all they did was add lubrication. They offered to try to get the sunroof replaced under warranty, but it would be $600 or more if the warranty wouldn’t cover it (which it probably would not). Everything on the car is covered under VCPO *except* the sunroof, which expires at 50,000 miles or 48 months. The very next day I happened to be opening my passenger side door to get something and noticed that a piece of metal behind the sunroof was skewed, obviously broken on one side. I head back to Volvo, and they quote me a minimum of 2 hours to disassemble the sunroof and diagnose the problem (at $119/hour). I declined.
Today I decided to pull it apart myself and take a look. It took me about 20 minutes to get the glass out and take apart the mechanism to find the problem. The issue: a small plastic tab broke off of one of the sliders that guides the glass back into the roof of the car and pushes the roof panel back when the sunroof is opened. The plastic tab (right arrow below) holds the metal arm on that actually attaches the slider to the sunroof .. without the tab, the metal arm popped off, and the sliders were only being pushed back on the left side.
sunroof slider
How to Disassemble a Volvo S60 Sunroof:
- Tilt the sunroof up fully. The plastic accordions on the side are held to the glass with 3 metal clips. Starting at the back, just pull the accordion out of the clips.
- The glass is held onto the mechanism by 4 T-15 or T-20 torx screws hidden behind the accordion. The back screws are easy to get to, but you’ll have to compress the accordion or slide it back as far as it will go to get the front screws out.
- Carefully lift the glass out and put it somewhere safe. Last i checked, this is the most expensive part of the sunroof minus the labor to fix it.
- With the glass out of the way, there are two gold torx screws on each side that hold the metal arm that goes back under the roof. Remove these and the sliders and crossbar can be moved forward more.
- There are four screws on top of the crossbar that attach it to the plastic sliders. Remove these and the crossbar tilts up and slides out.
- Tilt the metal arms and sliders inwards and the sliders just lift out of the rails. If you lift the metal arm straight up they just pop off the plastic pin holding them in place.
This is as far as I had to go to get to the problem. I’ll take pictures when I get the part replaced and have to take it apart again. :)
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September 27, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Leave it to you to take something a part and figure it out yourself, haha. Hope you don’t have anymore issues with your car.
September 28, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Here are the pictures as promised:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sb.ninja/VolvoS60SunroofRepair
It’s really not difficult, and worth the effort since Volvo charges $99 – $119 an hour for labor.
June 28, 2009 at 10:23 am
What if my roof is stuck 3/4 open and it won’t close, what do u suggest in this case?
July 8, 2009 at 11:31 pm
If it isn’t physically stuck (like something jamming it) then try cycling your door locks with your remote. When my selector gate broke, one of the sides would get jammed because only one side was being pulled forward .. this caused the sunroof to get stuck and reverse. If you can, look back into the recess where the glass slides and make sure nothing looks out of place or crooked (like the crossbar).
November 10, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I only need to take out my slider. Is all this necessary?
Bob
November 12, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Unfortunately, yes. You can’t get to the screws that hold the slider in unless its pushed forward, but you can’t push it forward without removing the metal arms that attach it to the sunroof mechanism. You can’t remove the metal arms unless you remove the glass because the screws for the arms are behind the mounting bracket for the glass. I think this is why repairs cost so much because you can’t just get to the piece you need .. you have to take the whole thing apart in order until you find it.
May 16, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Nice write-up and picture set. Where did you get the replacement part? I have a 98 V70 with a broken assembly that looks similar to yours. I can get to it but have no idea how to describe the part to the service desk. Is there a service manual that contains more information?
May 17, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I took the part into the local Volvo dealer and had them pull up the sunroof assembly schematic to find a match. They ordered the part for me, which is called a selector gate, for $112. The parts vary slightly by model, so make sure you get the right one. Mine came with a couple extra pieces in the bag which were for newer models and I did not need, so don’t be surprised if you get parts that don’t match anything on your vehicle. Might want to pick up some white lithium grease to put in the track after you install the new part.
July 1, 2009 at 12:08 am
I have a problem with the slider.It got stuck and all the little plastic elements that go on a track are broken.There are also two plastic parts on each side that hold glass and slider together and they are broken too.Volvo wants $1270 for labor and parts….that’s crazy!!! I’m gonna do it by myself.
Where should I look for these parts??
Thx
July 8, 2009 at 11:35 pm
If you have a friendly dealer then they should be able to go to the parts department and ask them for the parts. The local dealer here even sent me the exploded parts diagram so I could look for the parts I needed. The most expensive part of the repair is going to be labor because they all charge at least $90/hour and like to estimate 2-8 hours for anything that involves the sunroof. For $1200 you should be able to get a brand new sunroof installed.
July 9, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I broke the glass itself, dealer wants 980.00 to fix it. Think it would be cheaper to do myself. Will it be a pain?
July 11, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The glass is pretty expensive, probably in the $500-600 range depending on where you are. If the glass comes with the mounting rails then its a 10 minute procedure to swap it out. Check with your local Volvo dealer to see exactly what is included when you order the glass, and also how much of that $980 price tag is labor.
August 5, 2009 at 5:57 pm
i have a similiar problem with my sunroof guys.
out of nowhere my sunroof broke on my 05 s60r.
the problem i have is that roof would not close all the way, it would stay open about 3,4 inches and it would not go more . it would also make wierd noise when closing. i took a car to local mechanic so he could take a look at it but he didnt have enough time to mess around with that, we spend about 2 hours trying to figure out whats wrong and then we decided to stop. we took everything apart and now i have all the screws in box and the actual glass piece is just sitting there covered by piece of cardboard and a bag ducktaped to roof … any sugestions ? the mechanic did say something about possibly changing the wire or something , anyone had that problem before ? please help me.
August 21, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Hello,
I just seemed to have broken my sunroof the same way. I tried to play with it a little yesterday but ran out of time.
Would you still have that blown up sunroof diagram ? I also wonder how much all those little extra parts cost.
Do you have any other websites that you can refer me to ?
Thanks again for your help
August 22, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I can’t seem to find it, but your local Volvo dealer will have access to an online catalog with all of the diagrams. I will post it on Flickr or something if I run across the diagram ..
The little parts may be expensive (the selector gate cost me $112 for a 2oz piece of plastic) but the labor is normally just as much if not more than the parts!
October 19, 2009 at 3:48 am
Hi knightfoo,
I stumbled upon your blog while searching for how to fix the rattling sunroof in my Volvo S60.
The description and photos you have posted are very helpful, and hopefully I will able to fix the problem myself, and I would like to thank-you for posting them.
Will attempt the fix this weekend :)
Thanks again!
April 14, 2010 at 10:30 am
Is this the same procedure I would follow if I need to replace the sunshade under the sunroof glass? During a reall cold snap the shade was pushed on while trying to get something out of the back seat, there was a snapping noise and now the shade will not slide forward or backward. Now that the warm weather is here I would really like to use it.
June 14, 2010 at 3:05 pm
I’m pretty sure you need to remove the glass and rails to get the shade out, so yes. Let me know if you find a better way!
August 19, 2010 at 11:19 am
2000 S80 T6 wih 85,000 miles. Overall great car. Metal bar apparently to strengthen the front edge of the sunroof glass came off. Apparently the metal was glued to the glass. glued underneath and runs rom side to side on the front. All the adhesive is on the metal with none remaining on the glass. Anyone with experience with gluing back in place?? I thought about buying a couple of the kits used to reglue rear view mirrors onto the windshield. Thank you
Thank you
March 6, 2011 at 6:04 pm
I have a problem with the slider. It got stuck and plastic elements that allow the sunroof to slide on the track are damaged. I would like to repair it myself.
Where should I look for these parts??
June 6, 2011 at 9:02 pm
I have a 2001 Volvo V70 with a sunroof issue similar to what was described above. I asked the dealer to provide me with a parts list and price for what I needed to do the repairs. Below is what he gave me:
Modesty Panel, Left, Part # 9175621, $19.61
Modesty Panel, Right, Part # 9175622, $19.61
Guide (Qty 4), Part # 9483170, $7.91 each.
Do these parts seem to be the correct parts to repair the sunroof? If not, any suggestions? I checked on line for price comparison and they were not much higher than online stores – within $4.
June 8, 2011 at 7:28 pm
The part that I had to replace was the Selector Gate, which is #6 in this diagram:
http://www.volvopartswebstore.com/showAssembly.aspx?ukey_product=1185948&ukey_assembly=236282
The Modesty Panels are #11, the accordion-like plastic covers on each side. The Guide looks like a clip that attaches to the panel that you slide back with the sunroof. I haven’t shopped around for those, but the prices seem reasonable.
October 26, 2011 at 6:25 pm
You are the man knightfoo – I followed your instructions to the “T” b/c the sunshade portion of the moonroof had come off it’s rails and was making this horrible sound.
Folks, take it easy prying the accordians off the rails. Also, for my 2003 S60, the glass was held on by a T25 Torx.
Thanks again knightfoo!
December 29, 2011 at 6:32 pm
[...] bounces to the top spot once in a while. The second most popular post now (used to be #1) is my Volvo Sunroof Repair post that details how to replace the selector gate in a sunroof. This one is probably popular due [...]
April 4, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Knightfoo…. “the Sunroof Czar”….I too experience the same problem, while opening my sunroof on my 2004 s60 I heard this really terrible sound and the sunroof got stuck about half way open, my only concern was to get it close since it rains a lot during the spring here in Georgia. well I closed it and finally inspecting it I found some pieces of black plastic, I believe the tracks are broken. Is this something I can repair myself and how to I go about determining what parts I need/ I really can’t afford taking it to a dealership I know they’ll take me to the cleaners