Ratchet straps, custom latches, glued on glass, welded-on sheetmetal — the list of MacGyvered solutions to the second-generation Jeep Liberty’s disastrous Sky Slider roof problem is enormous. Why? Because after thousands of people purchased a cool fabric roof for their off-road vehicle, in short order they found themselves high and dry (OK, not dry), with no replacement parts anywhere to be found.Â
The second-generation Jeep Liberty, internally coded as the “KK,” arrived in 2008 as the successor to the first-generation Liberty, the controversial Cherokee XJ-replacing “KJ” (you know, the round one that always looks happy). The KK was a boxy, bankruptcy era, hard-plastic-filled, underpowered Jeep considered by most as mediocre at best. It was decent off-road, and did have a couple of neat special editions, plus it offered one whiz-bang feature that nobody else had: A fabric sliding roof called the Sky Slider. It was genuinely cool at first, but within a few years, that nifty feature would become a seemingly unsolvable headache for many people who regretted ever having ticked that option box.
The Sky Slider opened up nearly three-quarters of the KK’s roof area via a motorized canvas cover that slid back or forward and folded itself, accordion-style. It was cleverly engineered with an obstacle-detection system to prevent the mechanism from jamming, and multi-position adjustability so occupants could decide how much sky to…slide.
The feature looked great, but many who bought a KK Liberty with the fabric top would now tell you that it totally wasn’t worth it.
Click the video above to see Sky Slider in action (it’s just a six second scene). You’ll notice how it opens from the rear, though in the image before it opens from the front. It was clever — when it worked.
Why Did It Become So Problematic?
When I say the Sky Slider became problematic, I don’t mean the concept itself; it’s awesome. I wish more manufacturers offered a unique sunroof option like it. (I know Land Rover offers a similar canvas top on the current Defender — and knowing their brand reputation, say a few prayers that it doesn’t fail).
No, the primary problem that plagues these Sky Sliders is that they all eventually fail. And it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. They were simply not built to last.
The shocking videos above, posted by Ryan Nicolosi, whose Liberty was turned into a veritable rain forest due to Jeep’s faulty Sky Slider design, should drive home what the problem is.
The number of Jeep Liberty owners with broken Sky Slider roofs is astronomical. In fact, every single model year that Jeep offered the Liberty Sky Slider, 2008-2012, has loads of complaints from customers to the U.S. government’s vehicle safety organization, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). One owner writes that their Sky Slider just… fell off:
“Millions of people are experiencing this issue all around. It failed me right away! After on (sic) incident when I was driving on highway the Sky Slider just came off!!! It almost caused multply (sic) accidents!” reads the complaint from Brooklyn.
Another Liberty owner complains that their Sky Slider came off the tracks, wouldn’t close, leaked, and also almost fell off:
“Skyslider roof unhinges off track and leaks terribly. Almost blew off on highway while driving 65 mph. Cannot be put back on track,” the complaint from Poughkeepsie states.
Sky Sliders were even reportedly ailing Liberties that have under 50,000 miles on them — that’s pretty sad. This owner writes that theirs failed at 44,000 miles:
“The contact had to forcefully shut the roof after the cables disconnected from the guide rails with the convertible sun roof,” the complaint reads, before going on: “The contact called Rothrock Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, but the parts were too hard to obtain so they did not want to attempt to make any repairs.”
These complaints were only from the 2011 model year, but if you go through the other years, you’ll find similar ones detailing the same issues.
There’s also a Facebook group titled Jeep Sky Slider Roof Problems.” It documents the many issues Liberty owners have been facing with their Sky Sliders. The cover picture is a stained headliner, damaged by water leaking through the roof:
I’m not entirely sure how much it costs to repair or replace a headliner, but I imagine it’s not a cheap or easy job. Also, I’d be worried about mold or bacteria growing beneath the fabric. Not exactly the best thing to breathe in. At least you can open the sunroof for some air, oh wait…
Repair? Parts? Nope. Good Luck!
[Editor’s Note: I wanted to get an idea for how exactly Sky Slider roofs fail, so I did a little digging.Â
The video above shows the basic mechanical setup (just watch the 30 seconds starting where the clip above begins). There’s a pair of motors and some cable-driven transmissions that pull the fabric top (which is stiffened by some cross-bars) along a track. Various metal and plastic pins and levers are responsible for making sure the Sky Slider glides along the track and locks into place when open/shut.Â
As I understand, either parts of the track break, the motor fails, or — perhaps most common — the cable itself strips. No, it doesn’t break, it strips. How? Well, the cable is a special “flexible rack” style cable, meaning it acts as a rack (like a steering rack) while the electric motor spins a “pinion.” As the motor (forward or reverse, i.e. open or close) spins, it rotates its pinion gear, which rides along the cable.Â
I asked member of the aforementioned Jeep Sky Slider Roof Problems Facebook page, Jeepz Organics, to help me understand why these roofs fail, and he sent me the photo below showing the motors and controllers. The gear on the bottom left runs along an aforementioned cable (“flexible rack”):
Jeepz Organics also showed me these images below, which, though a bit dark, show the cables that pull the Sky Slider along the track; the cables are tripped, Jeepz Organics told me, and can thus no longer act as flexible racks that move the roof:
Here’s a screenshot of the cable all bunched up, causing the Sky Slider to fail:
I asked Jeepz Organics what exactly is going on. Here’s what they told me:
The cable is just a helix cable [representing] the length of top that a motor moves with a gear, and often times the cable strips out. It has to overcome way too much leverage to move the top from the rear to the front.
The forces on that top are just too great while open for the under engineered track assy
What do you do when your Sky Slider fails? Do you place a brick on the accelerator of your Liberty and drive it into a lake? Do you scrap it? You can move to Yuma, Arizona, the driest city in the United States, and drive your Liberty around with a broken, but open Sky Slider without fearing any incoming rain.
Finding a replacement top for your Liberty will be, well, difficult. The part was discontinued by Chrysler, officially. Searching the part number 68055315AF brings you to Chrysler’s factory parts page where it’s currently unavailable and will be, well, forever.
I particularly like the excessive usage of exclamation marks after the “NOT FOR SALE” statement. It shows the dire situation at hand with the Sky Slider. Chrysler really wants you to know you’re flat out of luck.
So you can’t buy an OEM replacement top from Chrysler. But what about a secondary parts source? Another quick Google search brings you to MoparPartsGiant, which states about Sky Slider bits: “This part is discontinued.”
However, Chrysler Dodge Jeep of McKinney, Texas, seems to have an assembly in stock! It can be yours for $1320.90, discounted from the original price of $1985.00.
That’s right, a nearly $2,000 part for an old Jeep that’s maybe worth $7,000. Oh, don’t forget to throw in another $2,000-$3,000 in labor costs to install a new Sky Slider. That’s a lot for most individuals to spend on unnecessary features. Sky Slider Liberty owners seem to agree and have creatively developed temporary fixes and solutions, as I will now share.
Solutions (Sort Of)
Digging into Youtube, Reddit subthreads, Facebook Groups, and forums brings a handful of different methods Liberty owners have resorted to to “repair” their broken Sky Sliders. One man in Mexico had a bunch of parts custom-made out of aluminum:
One owner, The World as Seen by Tom on Youtube, installed window clamp screws into the runner of his Sky Slider, permanently securing the front of the top to the rails and frame of the roof.
Another solution is to buy a sheet of polycarbonate plastic and insert it into the rails where the old canvas top would have been. This eliminates the Sky Slider top entirely and is a much cheaper option. However, polycarbonate is still not cheap, costing around $500 depending on the sheet size. Additionally, now your Liberty has a giant fixed piece of thin glass without a shade. This is exactly what Liberty owner Brian Halbasch did on his daughter’s Jeep:
Some folks have used tinted glass as a solution. Leigh Hazelbaker, for example, posted these images of her Jeep’s new lid:
Leigh told The Autopian’s Editor-in-Chief David Tracy a bit about her situation:
Yes it’s a mind bender that Jeep knew of this issue, stopped producing the sky slider yet also stopped producing the parts. The dealer offered me no solutions and if it wasn’t for this FB page, I wouldn’t have found this workable solution. I hope you will be including the various solutions to the problem because at this point, that’s what really matters.
This job was apparently done by Liberty Auto Glass Plus out of Bailey, NC (talk about an appropriate name for a business — no, they don’t just do Jeep Liberties). Jerald Wilks also used this shop, and with nice results:
They also put some type if rubber sealant over top of the glue to protect from weather.”In case you don’t want to watch those long videos above, here’s a screengrab showing the dire situation — the Liberty owner had to buy an entire Jeep Liberty top section, chopped off at the pillars!:
Here’s a look at Liberty owner Dustin Glenn’s welding work (he tack welded it because thin sheetmetal gets too hot if he lays down a continuous bead, and thus can warp, so he alternates between various parts of the roof with small tacks until it’s completely welded). Presumably Glenn ground the welds nice and flat, then painted over top, though I don’t have an “after” photo:
But fixes get much, much more creative than that. The aforementioned user named Jeepz Organics installed some Jeep Wrangler-Style latches for their roof solution
The setup is rather elegant, with the entire latch mechanism attaching to the Sky Slider above the headliner, out of line of sight:
Perhaps less elegant, but still effective is this ratchet strap fix by Facebook page member Thomas Moore:
Then there’s Esau Gonzalez from Mexico, who had his broken Sky Slider parts custom-made out of what appears to be aluminum:
However, among the impressive MacGyvers is one true hero, and his name is Mikey Siddons, owner of A&B Upholstery in Baldwin, New York — a man who personally specializes in fixing the broken soft tops that plague these vehicles. He says that he has fixed “well over a hundred of these sky slider systems” and if parts are unavailable (hint, they are!) he “fabricates and modifies them to work with no problems.”
Although not particularly cheap, around $1,700, Sky Slider owners are extremely satisfied with the work that Mikey puts into their Jeeps. I found this Liberty owner who traveled all the way from Florida just to get her Sky Slider fixed. Now that’s dedication!
We’ve reached out to Mikey to learn more about what he does, but haven’t heard back. In any case, he seems to be, according to that Facebook group, the only outfit in the entire U.S. that can fix these Liberty Sky Sliders.
What a shame that Jeep designed this roof so poorly, and what a shame the brand discontinued a part that was inevitably going to break, abandoning all customers who have broken Sky Sliders that leak water into their vehicles. But ingenious fixes and heroes like Mikey turn this story into a positive one — a display of human resourcefulness.
My best advice? Skip buying a Liberty. Oh, and one with a Sky Slider too. It’s not worth the hassle. Buy yourself an old YJ Wrangler and take the top off of that. Although you might run into other problems … Just Empty Every Pocket, they say.
This story included reporting assistance by David Tracy.
If you’ll excuse a boomer-esque Oh-That’s-An-Excuse-To-Ramble-About-My-Life, looking for an A2 for my now ex, I managed to find one with the famous OpenSky sunroof.
Imagine, instead of that cable lugging canvas back and forth, it moved not one but TWO glass panels: the front one tilted, moved back -your usual sunroof- and when it was out of movement range the rear one did the same to give it more room to travel back, resulting in a sort of sunroof tiramisu served on the back of the roof.
It is more often than not referred to as the BrokenSky, and I don’t think that surprises anyone. But at least, its failure mode leaves you with a fixed, watertight, shaded glass roof, which, mind you, is better than most of the fixed roofs in the article.
Said now ex did purchase that A2, and its OpenSky will indeed operate – after enough attempts sizably aided by ideally two people. The two times we ever bothered it was glorious.
Great car, that A2. It’s also a 90hp diesel -quite the torque for the weight- which along with the sunroof probably makes it between Enzo and F1 rare.
The most amazing part of all of this to me is the number of people willing to find time-consuming solutions that require ingenuity and handiness. All for a shit-ass Jeep Liberty.
It’s a Jeep thing you wouldn’t understand.
Let’s just agree that a sunroof of any kind is a terrible idea.
I’ve had decent luck with my Pontiac Vibe’s sunroof. Though I very much wish I didn’t have it. Previous owner chose it with power nothing over a car with power everything but no sunroof.
I only sort of regret buying that car sometimes.
Bull. I had one exactly like this on my 1979 Renault Gordini, and it was fabulous. It also lasted just fine until I got rid of the car at 200,000 miles.
It’s all about how well it’s engineered. The concept is fine.
I have had multiple cars with sunroofs and no issues. Typically as long as they are maintained (drains and seals kept clean) they are fine.
I remember being at a Jeep dealership a few years back and they had a 4 door Wrangler with a sliding top like the sky slider. I wonder if that had the same problems.
While I was looking at the Jeep, a sales bro sidled up and said “That’s pretty cool, right?” I simply responded that it was not and I didn’t like the idea at all. He didn’t seem to know how to respond to me.
There’s no more awkward pause in the world than a car sales rep being told the truth about their product.
The roof in my clapped out Fuego with 320000km still worked when I scrapped it
I can’t help but wonder if the mentality is “And if it breaks, they’ll get some fancy aftermarket thing anyway and convince themselves it’s an upgrade to make my special little Jeep even more uniquer.”
I like how that first person assumes millions of people were dumb enough to buy a Jeep Liberty.
and also that it failed “right away!” when in 2020 that clearly couldn’t have been “right away!”??
Let alone a second generation bankruptcy era Liberty with a silly motorized fabric roof.
Nearly everyone who wrote a complaint or post could spell or capitalize correctly. Are people lazy, stupid or just semi-literate?
Even the Spanish sign with “REFACIONES” is misspelled – it should have two C’s!
And then you came and left out ‘not’ from ‘could not’ in your complaint post 🙂
Don’t forget Mikey, who might do better business if his posts were proofread by someone.
I remember when this came out and thinking to myself: “Complex with multiple points of potential failure. This is asking to break.”
::slowly puts a cover over his MX-5 RF:: Nothing to see here.
I thought automakers were legally required to keep parts available for a certain number of years after they stop selling a model? The number I hear regarding motorcycles is 10 years. I’d have figured jeep would be legally obligated to stockpile parts before the supplier went under, or do some kind of recall/buyback to fix it.
That’s a myth, automakers are required to warranty emissions systems and guarantee replacement parts for those, but that’s about it. They can sell a car one day, stop stocking parts for it the next, if they want to
I believe the ten year “rule” is more of a standard practice rather than a legal obligation. When I worked for a semiconductor mfgr that supplied chips to the auto industry, the mfgrs required us to sign a guarantee that we would produce a given chip for ten years or give them time to make a lifetime purchase if we were to discontinue production prior to the ten years.
I know from first hand experience, that Honda will only produce parts for the term of the warranty period. I think that is per some agreement with dealers that are on the hook to perform service. Anything beyond length of time is at their discretion.
This is quite the hot take. Who peed in your corn flakes this morning?
All these comments, and no one’s gonna mention that the company that was producing everything for the Sky Slider went bust and that’s why you can’t buy parts for it anymore? Around the time of discontinuation, it sure sounded like those Sky Slider parts were still decent sellers.
Eh, I’ll just blame Daimler. They caused a lot of 21st century problems for Chrysler, yet they’re treated like royalty smh.
Fair, though it’s safe to say these drenched customers don’t care about Chrysler’s supplier problems.
Since I don’t want to post the exact same response twice, I’ll just point you to my response to CoolJetta. You can 100% disagree and respond to this comment, I just feel like it was pointless to just copy/paste the same comment.
You aren’t the only one that’s got some experience with the parts counter for Chrysler, I just don’t dig deep when most parts are NLA….. Those phone calls are always fun when you call the day of or the day after a customer’s requested part gets discontinued.
I always heard of this Sky Slider issue though, and I believe it fully. Chrysler will always Chrysler, especially under Fiat, so I’m not surprised they would choose a small supplier, watch it close, then instead of just trying to find a new one, they just discontinue the part, pass blame, and want you to buy new.
The picture of the internals shows a VDO/Siemens controller. I have to imagine that’s got to be in production in some form. When did they go bust? That was a mega-corporation.
You can make individual parts all day, but you can’t get every little piece separate in the Sky Slider. A different company had to assemble parts from Continental & VDO/Siemens together to then sell as one part. When that company went bust, there was no other company to take other suppliers parts, put them together on the same lines, and sell them to Chrysler to then sell to the public.
I find this comment disappointing, and I’ve never met Jason or David. In my view, they have gone above and beyond building a new community around making cars fun. Without that, where would they post content, let alone make a living? It is not sustainable, nor is it realistic, to have just two writers for all the content. They have done an unbelievable job finding fun talent to join them and make this sustainable. I’m not sure your idea of car content utopia exists; I appreciate the Autopia we have here.
Jason, David, and the whole staff — know this person does not speak for everyone. We love you and appreciate you all.
This article could be summarized by saying: “jeep made it”.
My ’76 BMW has a classic crank-open Golde metal sunroof. They are well engineered, do not leak (unless the drains get clogged), and generally reliable if you are gentle with your inputs. But the wire-wrapped fuzzy cables and plastic attachment sliders do snap, especially after 50 years of use. You can still buy all the parts and a rebuild can be done by a novice in under a day. There was a motor-driven version but it was not popular, because it really adds nothing but cost and complexity.
I love BMW parts availability and their parts system in general.
Cool idea, less-than-ideal execution…but my goodness, it looks very much like a KK toupée.
Ha, I posted about the Sky Slider on another article a while back. I knew these would be a nightmare, as fun as they seemed at the moment.
Luckily the rest of the Liberty was such a terrible vehicle that the cool sunroof didn’t convince me.
This seems to be a well-researched article about what I would consider, a very much not EV shitbox solution. Posted on a Sunday no less? I mean, not that I agree with complaining about EV news, but maybe this comment would make more sense on an EV news article, and not the extremely Autopian “how some folks are cobbling together solutions for their awful Sky Slider?”
Obviously Jason and David have their hands full, but they’ve still be putting out content. Not sure where these expectations are coming from.
I stumbled across A&B some years ago. They also do routine things and even small jobs. The shop doesn’t look impressive, but the work is. I had them replace a headliner and even something as small as installing wear pads on floor mats, just under where your right foot rests while on the accelerator. Plus, I live nearby. I’d certainly go back if I had another upholstery problem.