My daughter's 2009 HHR SS sunroof suddenly won't close more than halfway. It tries to open past the full open position.

Looks like it lost the position information for the glass.

I have a 2006 Service manual and tried the sunroof learn procedure in it, but it doesn't work.

Do you think there is a difference between 2006 and 2009 on the learn procedure?

Anyone have this problem before?

Thanks
Steve

 

My 2006 decided that it doesn't want to close the sunroof also.
It acts like it hits a stop and wants to reopen.
At first about halfway and now it's about an inch short of full close/
Also the open/close action is very slow.
Due to a loud snapping noise I heard, I believe something broke.

Now I just need the time to remove the headliner to diagnose the issue.

 

Could be the tracks are out of whack, the drive mechanism just might need lubricant.

Snoopy might be on to something
https://www.chevyhhr.net/forums/main...ovement-51082/

I don’t think there are different sunroofs from the ‘06 to ‘11 model years

 

The sunroof moves smoothly. It stops at the same spot every time. I tried "helping it along" but it acts as though it thinks the closed position is a spot halfway open.

The service manual procedure is to push the vent open until its open.

Then push and hold the vent open button until it hits the hard stop, then drops a little (soft stop). This should tell it where the open position is. Except it doesn't work.

It looks like all sensing is done in the motor/control module assembly. There are no "limit switches" anywhere. Probably why it can lose position information.

Steve

 

I couldn't figure out why it was stopping about halfway.

My daughter needed the car for school tomorrow.

I dropped the headliner, removed the motor, and ran the motor by itself. The motor ran in either direction for a fixed number of rotations. There is probably some internal encoder that counts revolutions necessary for full travel. I ran the motor until it was about halfway between the ends of travel (which would match the position of the glass) and reinstalled the motor. Essentially I performed a "mechanical" relearn. This allowed me to close the sunroof using the motor. It's not aligned perfectly, but it bought me time to look at it at a later date. I disconnected the switches to make sure nobody tried to reopen it (until I fix it right later) and reinstalled the headliner.

Steve

 

I knew you would figure out a solution to the problem.