Background: My sunroof broke when my car had 25,000 miles on it (how nice of

it to wait until the warranty had expired). Basically, it started "clunking"

into place when it closed and was not as smooth as it was originally. After one clunk

too many, I heard it pop and it wouldn’t close any more without me manually sliding one

of the guides back. I took it to the dealer I bought the car from and he said the best

they could do was to split the cost with me. My portion would have been almost $500, so

I decided to leave it in its broken state and hope for a recall or something like that.

Wishful thinking.....

Problem: A piece in the sunroof assembly breaks, and VW insists that they do

not sell individual pieces for the Corrado sunroof. I found this hard to swallow and

decided to investigate for myself. After tearing it apart, I found that the piece that

broke was the shiny metal piece that the drive cable is bonded to. The cable is crimped

into the piece and it broke at the crimp. This allowed the sunroof to tilt up, but not

close because the cable could pull the guide in one direction but not the other. I have

read about how others have fixed their sunroofs, but the parts they replaced were not the

ones that were broken in mine. Some people described the roof getting scratched and

gouged after the piece broke, but this did not happed to mine, thank God.

Finding the parts: The part number of each piece in the assembly is molded

into the piece next to a Rockwell International symbol. I found out that the Sunroof

division of Rockwell had been converted to Meritor Automotive and I eventually talked

to someone in Mexico where the current sunroofs are built. I was hoping that I could

buy the parts from them, since by now I had heard the "you can’t get individual

pieces for the Corrado sunroof" line too many times. But, to my suprise, he ended

up giving me the actual VW part numbers for the individual pieces and said that I could

order these numbers from the dealer. To make a long story short, I finally got the piece

I needed for less than $100.

Repairing: Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures or even make any notes so

anything written here is from my memory. The CCA page has a good description of the procedure

in the garage tips section.

The only thing that I would add is a procedure for removing the trim pieces above the doors

that cover the seat belt guides. I broke the clips that hold them on when I pulled and pulled

on them. There are 3 or 4 black metal clips that hold the trim to the silver metal seat belt guide.

If you look at the guide from the bottom (as if you are laying on your back), you will see the

clips. Use a flat screwdriver and pry the clips towards the inside of the car to pop the clips off.

I have my trim pieces held on with two-sided tape now.

The culprits:

Broken Cable Guide - 1H0-898-015A

Here is a list of some of the individual parts of the sunroof

Description	Left(Driver's) Side	Right(Passenger's) Side	Comment
Rear guide	1H0-898-019	1H0-898-020	This is NOT the part that broke in mine
Cable guide	1H0-898-015A	1H0-898-016A	This IS the part that broke in mine