I have a 2005 Mazda 3 and last summer I was leaving work so I opened my sunroof and a little while later it started to downpour so I went to shut it and it wouldn't budge and all I could hear was this awful grinding noise in the ceiling. I got home, covered it up and dropped the headliner the best I could and noticed that a screw was loose on the motor so I tightened that and it still wasn't working. I had to have someone hold the close button while I pulled the glass, thankfully I didn't hear anything bad but who knows if I broke anything further. About a few days ago I dropped the ceiling again and took the motor off completely and a metal bracket fell off from where the gear goes into the ceiling, so I mounted that and started to mess around with the motor and it works perfectly fine while it's out of the ceiling, but once I put it back in, it's almost like the buttons are backwards. Tilt usually doesn't work and when it does, it tries opening the glass and what not. I made sure that the button was pressed for it being closed and the gear spun until it stopped and now I don't know what to do. It seems as if this thing fell of track and after reading the FSM(or whatever it is) I can't make sense of how to fix it. I called a local mazda dealer and they haven't got back to me yet. I would really like this fixed because my AC doesnt work anymore!

help!?

 

Sounds like the drive, or track, that the glass mounts to has been damaged. I have had good luck sourcing the whole assembly from salvage yards. I believe the only way to get it thru the dealer is the assembly, or cassette as it's sometimes called, minus the glass.

 

I went to a junkyard and pulled a motor off another 3 and surprisingly it actually worked for the most part. It would open and close but the tilt up would only open so far, so I disconnected the battery hoping this would reset it and allow it to open all the way and once I connected the battery, it started grinding real bad and snapped the gear on the motor in half...ugh lol

 

Sunroof broke, A/C out, summer coming. Free tip, don't play the lottery this week. I kind of figured you would have to do the whole thing. Time consuming dropping the headliner but not a two day job. Just take your time and have a second set of hands around when you remove the headliner from the car and putting it back in. You can do it by yourself, but the extra set of paws helps.

 

LOL!!!! I'll have a friend come over this weekend and help me with the headliner. The junkyard I go to doesn't charge to much so I'm going to head back there and get everything I need. Thanks for the input!

 

I went to the junkyard, got the sunroof and installed it today and it works like a charm!!!

 

Nice, did you dissect the old one to see what failed in the track?

 

Didn't have time to mess with it today but maybe this weekend I'll look at it.