sunroof issues

[mbarsalou]

Good morning,
Two days ago my sunroof opened perfectly. Last night my husband and I took my 95 bmw 530i for a drive and the sunroof would not open. When I push the button it acts like it wants to open. It moves a little bit both back and forth but not even far enough to see sky either way. We bought my baby back in April and I love her - she is my dream car. I live quite aways from a dealership and am hoping this could possibly be a an easy fix for us??
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[SharkmanBMW]

have you tried pushing it to help it move?
Could be jammed, or the motor is tired.

Mine died like that last year... needed a motor. It was fine one day, then it did what it wanted!
Rigmaster here sent me a used that did the job!
If you pop the panel down, there is a spot for the allen key to go in, so you can crank it open or closed wheile you wait for a fix.
The key should be in the tool kit in the trunk

[Russell]

May be explained in your manual on how to open and close manually. Also, is there a local independent BMW shop in your area?

[wmann]

Try pushing the button up for 8-10 seconds. It should reset the controls....

Good Luck....

[chris_e34]

a couple of weeks ago i had the exact same problem. mine would lift up but not fully open. with it in the up position i looked inside where the tracks are, i noticed a twig was blocking the path. i removed the twig with some long needle nose pliers, and it worked perfectly. it is possible you have a similar issue with some debris. you mentioned that it acts like it will open but then stops...this tells me that the motor is probably good. it blew my mind when i saw that a tiny twig was the culprit for mine. hope that helps good luck

[gale]

Here's some info from Max Fretter's "lost" Freeyellow page:

http://bmwe32.masscom.net/maxf_website/sunroof.htm

[mbarsalou]

Good morning,
Two days ago my sunroof opened perfectly. Last night my husband and I took my 95 bmw 530i for a drive and the sunroof would not open. When I push the button it acts like it wants to open. It moves a little bit both back and forth but not even far enough to see sky either way. We bought my baby back in April and I love her - she is my dream car. I live quite aways from a dealership and am hoping this could possibly be a an easy fix for us??
Any help would be greatly appreciated! -

I can hardly wait for tomorrow morning to get here so I can try out these ideas! Thank you!!

I was under the assumption (remember new bmw owner here) that the only place to get authorized service was from bmw dealerships? is that correct???

Thank you everyone again!
Marie

[joshua43214]

You will probably get better service at an independant BMW specialist or Euro car specialist than at the dealer for an e34. The dealer will know the newer models better, but the older models will just confuse them unless they have some oldtimers. The e34 has been out of production for 10 years, most dealers are lucky to hang onto a tech for 5 years before they move on.

There is no need for "authorized" service once the warranty expires, and US law says they can not mandate dealer service to not void the warranty anyway. certain work can only be performed with the BMW computor, but there is not much of that.

What city do you live in? maybe someone here can recomend a good shop to you. If you are in central Ohio, I would recomend either Acceleration or the NorthEnd Wrench.

[mbarsalou]

You will probably get better service at an independant BMW specialist or Euro car specialist than at the dealer for an e34. The dealer will know the newer models better, but the older models will just confuse them unless they have some oldtimers. The e34 has been out of production for 10 years, most dealers are lucky to hang onto a tech for 5 years before they move on.

There is no need for "authorized" service once the warranty expires, and US law says they can not mandate dealer service to not void the warranty anyway. certain work can only be performed with the BMW computor, but there is not much of that.

What city do you live in? maybe someone here can recomend a good shop to you. If you are in central Ohio, I would recomend either Acceleration or the NorthEnd Wrench.

I live in Longview Washington, only about an hour from the nearest dealership, but, I work the hours the service department are open.

Again thank you,
Marie

[duby55]

I have issues with my sunroof I havn't had the time for dealing with yet, but I have read other posts that said there are plastic glides that can snap off and jam the sunroof tracks. There was a posting about this a few months back. It also had a link on the repair process. Its worth researching, it had a lot of good information.. Unfortunitly for me, I have to remove the headliner. There seems to be problems associated with that too.