Big update here - here is my diy on the pano roof repair kit - don't do it lol. The thing is that after taking this apart i realize that it isn't wear that breaks these things it is just that their is a million moving parts that are all plastic and very under built. If anything cause this thing to hang up (there are countless ways that can happen) then the parts will break and then the whole thing starts self destructing. The kits are expensive and if you mess up one piece your sol. It take forever to get things in place and the odds off messing something up or breaking something are very high. It is a gamble.

I got the parts and removed the pano on saturday night. I don't think I'm going to write a real thorough diy for this because it is so involved and complicated and there are so few people that will ever actually do it. The problem is that if you have to repair this it means that things had broken and were not functioning properly. This thing is like an automatic transmission, it is very difficult to understand how it is working if you have a bunch of broken parts. That said if all that is broken on yours is the rear window - that is fairly easy to fix once you get it out. on a 1-10 scale 1 being airing tires and 10 being rebuilding an AT I would put the rear window at 4, the main glass at 8 and the headliner at 8. The headliner is more simple than the main glass but it is a bunch of small loosely held together pieces of plastic that want to self destruct and are not very logical to assemble.

Removing the headliner is fairly easy I thought. Dropping the pano is also very easy. All you have to do is disconnect the wires and water lines going to it and then disconnect the side curtain air bag canister in the rear (you can just unbolt it and let it hang without unplugging it. I try to avoid unplugging air bags whenever possible as it can get costly. Then unbolt all of the 10mm head bolts around the perimeter. Leaving two in the very front and two in the very rear. These bolts have washer that hold them to the assembly so they willl spin and not come out. Leave them in and don't try to pull them out. Now raise the two front seats all the way up and adjust the headrests to it is up against the sunroof holding it up. The back seats should be up as well. Undo the two bolts in the front and let it rest on the seats. Undo the two bolts in the rear and then drop it down onto the rear seats (this is the light end. Now you can lower the front seats and walk it back and the eventually lower the rear seats and you can walk the whole assembly down very easily with one person. I chose to do this rather than taking the glass out first. It is easy to manage once you get it out of the vehicle and i didn't want to mess with taking the glass out from inside the vehicle and losing the bolts.

If anyone want to take on repairing this honestly just pm me and I can explain it over the phone. Bottom line is once it it out everything slide out the rear and you can pretty much just take on whichever kit you have as they are somewhat separate but do overlap some. For me trying to get the headliner together was by far the hardest due to a lot of uncertainty. The main glass I knew what I had to do it was just a PIA to get things in place. The main and rear glass aren't really able to destruct to a point where you have no idea how it is going on. The whole sliding mechanism on the main comes out together and as long as you keep it together you can put your new stuff together looking at that. By far the hardest part is getting the cable portion for the main glass attached to the sliding assembly. There are a lot of little things here and there that will hang you up so if someone wants tips pm me. Like I said its not easy and there is no guarantee it will work.

As of now I spent like 12 hours on the project and for some reason mine won't move at all but I think that is because I don't have the headliner hooked up. My assembly would not stay together and a small part ended up breaking and I think it is going to be a problem. I had to put the cassette back in so I can use my car. I'm going to take it out and give it another swing but the bottom line is its a PIA. I could do a much better job if I did it again but its definitely a gamble.

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2004 e53 m54 with 6spd manual