996 sunroof one-touch repair for cheap, with Infiniti G35 parts

The sunroof one-touch functionality on my 2004 996 C2 Coupe had stopped working, which seems like a common issue. I tried the reset procedure and that would work until the car was turned off and then it wouldn't work again. I didn’t spray the circuit board with electrical cleaner (also from here ) but that’s probably worth trying. Instead, I saw that Feparra had asked “ I was doing a quick research on the Porsche 996 sunroof motor and came across the motor used on an infinity G35 which looks exactly the same as the Porsche one. Both are Siemens with part numbers 770.60003. Of course a fraction of the cost on eBay! Has anyone here tried to retrofit one of these motors on their Porsche? ” I bought an Infiniti G35 motor from eBay: the 2003-2006 Infiniti G35 sunroof motor has the same Siemens part number, just search for “770.60003”. I paid $32.55 delivered. I took off the sunroof switch panel using these instructions and took out the motor. Unfortunately, I saw that the parts were very similar but not exactly the same. Specifically, the gray cylindrical part was longer on the Porsche unit than on the Infiniti unit. I didn’t want to replace a stronger motor with a weaker motor and have it fail later (maybe they’re totally interchangeable, eg if Siemens figured out how to make the part smaller but just as strong, but I didn’t want to chance it). However, I did change out the circuit board, within the black plastic housing. It’s held on by one Torx screw, and then a couple of tabs that need to be loosened. After reinstalling everything, it works! I have one-touch again! However, the button behavior is a little different, my guess is that the G35 has only two buttons while the 996 has three. The CLOSE (front) button now does nothing. When the sunroof is closed, hold TILT to tilt open. When the sunroof is tilted, hold CLOSE to close. When the sunroof is closed, press OPEN to open. One-touch! When the sunroof is open, press CLOSE to close. One-touch! Previously, when the one-touch functionality was working, the sunroof would open about 85% and then if I pressed OPEN again it would open 100%. Now, it goes straight to 100% open. So, the functionality is a little different than before, but, I’m totally fine with that because one-touch open/close works again! I thought I’d post this because I’ve found other writeups so helpful, and I wanted to share something I’d learned. I much prefer spending $32 on an G35 sunroof motor, than $400+ on the Porsche unit. BTW I should have said "swap the black plastic boxes" not swap the circuit boards. No need to take the circuit board out of the housing! Just swap the black unit completely.

Great post; I'm sure this will help many as our cars age.

Thank you!

Excellent post...this is definitely gold to RLers. I bet the the motor would have been fun too. As manufacturing processes have gotten better over the years the motor has gotten smaller to fit in newer car designs making this part more universal. Once again, great post. Thanks for sharing.

Not to dredge up an old thread, but I did this and now I'm having an issue where on the fully open setting, the sunroof seems to go too far back, like it's ignoring a limit switch. Anyone else having this problem?

Yes, I've had that issue as well. I just stop it before it goes too far back, by hitting the switch again. So, definitely not perfect. If you figure out some better method, please add it here.

Fantastic post. I wonder what the functionality would have been had you just installed the part as-is.

I hate to resurrect such an old thread, but… I bought a G35 sunroof motor and installed it “as is”, everything works exactly like the OP stated. The slightly smaller motor seems to handle things fine. I’m not sure if it was the circuit board or the motor on mine, I may try to swap the boards out for stock button function. Either way this was a great find.