Newbie, Need Help with Wacky Sunroof

I recently purchased a very good example of what must be one of the earliest 996's built. It's a Nov '97 production (I'm in Southern Europe) ; 1 previous owner, extremely low miles (47.000 km's - c.29k miles) very well cared for; Overall I'm extremely happy with the car (only regret i have is not having gotten a 996 earlier; but I'm catching up on lost time:-); it really makes an excellent stablemate to my ('06) X5. The Sunroof is the only real painpoint I haven't yet quite figured out. I've been reading up on all the sunroof-related threads but haven't found the exact same issue related. I Wondered if anyone had or heard of a similar issue: - When I first got the car (picked it up in Italy) and tried the Sunroof, the sunroof would tilt open, but would not slide open. While halfway driving home (to Portugal) my wife simply touched the open button while we're sitting on a French Highway traffic-jam, and the thing just worked like it never had a problem... - Since then; symptoms were: - Sunroof would only slide open with ignition on - While closing, the roof would always stop halfway, then go back; I'd then have to depress the close button again, and keep it pressed till the roof closed. - After tilting& slide opening it and closing it on several occasions (albeit always with the weird "half-way" reaction described above); today the sunroof decided not to slide-open again; i.e.: it's gone back to the same symptom it had back when I bought it a month ago. Tilt open-and-close works fine; even closes with the key remote. But try to slide-open it and no go; it "tries" to slide open (first movement where the back of the roof lowers to start sliding into roof happens) but gives up and goes back to it's original closed position immediately after. It seems like some sensor is thinking there's some impediment, and preventing the roof from slide-opening. Funny thinig is, that, during the days it was actually slide-opening, I had several occasions to visually check the sliders / guides, and was not able to see any obtrusions, issues etc.. Anyone got any clue?

Hey Porkshop (smiles) from one Porkshop to another, I had a similar problem, and it turned out to be a loose part, that looks like a plastic windshield wiper. I tried to re-instal it myself, but I could not. I would have the stealer look at it before opening/closing again, since you can do damage to the plastic "rails", if a loose part is in there, like mine was. Welcome to the board, and please post some pictures of your new baby. John

Same problem here - little plastic sliders were obstructing the mechanism. There is a method to "train" the sunroof operation/sensor function ( sorry, I don't have it at hand). If training does not fix the problem, you are off to the dealer. Mine cost me about $700 - essentially all labor, parts for this problem are not very expensive....for a Porsche.

Thanks for the kind replies; sounds like this might well be the issue. Tried to slide-open the sunroof this morning on my way to work just for the hell of it... one-touch, and it opened like there was never a problem... when closing with one-touch; it would go almost all the way to the end, then back up a few inches; as in times before, I had to keep the close button pressed to keep it closed.. I'm not able to see anything that would be an obtrusion, to maybe the best bet will indee be to first try out the famous "train" function... I'll give it a shot. Here's a couple of pics; the paint is pretty much original; I've"yet" to give it a decent claybar-swirl-remove-wax-sealant treatment... Attachment 254569 Attachment 254570 Attachment 254571 However controversial, the shape of these headlights is actually Growing on me.. Attachment 254572

Nice looking car and welcome.

Welcome to Rennlist. Congrats on gettig a nice looking P-car! Thanks for sharing the pics.