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Took E89 to Sytner's to have some small corrosion areas on corners of roof ( or whatever causes painted aluminum to bubble up) on 3rd March. Rung back today say still waiting for an answer. Anyone else put in a claim in pandemic period. Told 3 claim handlers all working from home but still seems a long time to me.

Hi mate how long is the warranty and how old is your car, I have the same problem on an 09 plate

Mines a Dec 2009 registered car (59plate) so less than 12 year old so should be covered by warranty. Paint shop man at Sytners said I was second one that day, first apparently black and also registered in Dec 2009. Gave impression it wouldn't be an issue.
Stash36 have you taken yours to dealer for then to take photos and to send off claim?

So I started exactly the same process for same issue, corners of roof corrosion, before it all locked down last year. Also 2009 registered but September.

Took a couple of weeks, apparently BMW came back to the dealer authorising partial cost cover but the dealer didn't know how much or why. They queried it and then this sh*t show happened.

Finally got around to picking it back up last week, but apparently there is no record of the claim with BMW or the dealer so I need to start the process again. Heading down today to get the ball rolling.

Welcome to the bubble roof group!!
Mine is a 2011 and I had the same issue as yourselves, as did a couple of other owners. I first contacted Sytners (Nottingham) in August 2019 and basically felt like they really didn't care or wanted to know about it (I wasn't the original owner, probably wouldn't normally take my Z to a BMW dealer, never buy a new car from them etc, etc). Either way, and after numerous times chasing them I finally got an answer back in March 2020 and booked it in for 22nd. When I got there they did not have a booking for me in and no loan vehicle either. The manager was in and they said he'd ring me back.... he did not. That night Boris issued Lockdown for the next day, so pleased I wasn't able to drop the car off now!!
Anyway once lockdown was raised I contacted Sytners back and was told I'd have to wait as they had a backlog of work (no sh*t, yeah mine form their balls-up! ) so had to wait another month. So all sorted, almost a year after I started it all off, but sorted. Continued the rest of the nice weather with the roof down as much as I could, but it was a nice repair job.
Start of the bad weather and I'm driving with the roof up more and more and I'm noticing a knocking coming from above me and a wind noise from behind the right shoulder that I wasn't aware of previously. Turns out they have broken a wire clip in the roof panel and the wire is sometimes knocking around and when they rebuilt the roof they managed to miss-align the rear roof gutter section. I've repaired both of these myself now as I really didn't want it going back to them.
So I wouldn't really recommend Sytners in Nottingham (wish I'd gone to Sopers in Lincoln now) as I don't feel I received a level of service you should expect from a BMW dealer.
I am happy with the repair, just not the level of service and attention to detail (I'm not including Lockdown delays in that as it wasn't their fault).

Seems quite common then for the forward corner of the top roof panel to have corrosion. My car as just the right corner with bubble.
They must have done something at the paint shop because the paint isn't broken.
Perhaps some cleaning process left something behind as the corner is the natural run off point.
Or they were placed on something the corner touches.

Mines on the front panel drivers side where it meets front rail and on passanger side on both panels where they join in middle of roof. Never thought about repercussions from presumably dismantling roof and getting it back together right. Think a good smart repairer could make it invisible but would need roof in part open position for a decent amount of time to do job. Does that in itself cause problems unless is supported in some way-seems a minefield to me.
Mines already had roof cables replaced under insured warranty and works without a problem IF it gets approved maybe time to do research before giving job go ahead. Only had car 5 months and can't say I'm impressed by Sytner's (not Nottingham and not the one who looked at roof) so far.

Edit just to add thanks for all replies great forum
Ken

Hmm. Thinking of an aluminum bodied XK 4.2 as a retirement present to myself on the basis that corrosion wouldn't be a problem.
Sounds like it's not as straight forward as that. I assume that overall corrosion is less of a problem with aluminum than steel? Would be interested to know what people think.

Sludgepump wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 9:42 am Hmm. Thinking of an aluminum bodied XK 4.2 as a retirement present to myself on the basis that corrosion wouldn't be a problem.
Sounds like it's not as straight forward as that. I assume that overall corrosion is less of a problem with aluminum than steel? Would be interested to know what people think.

My car is now 12 years old, no corrosion anywhere, other than that very right corner, been like that since i bought 9 years ago, which most probably wouldn't even spot. Days are gone of cars rotted through at 5 years.
What we are discussing is a manufacturing fault.

Mines a June 2009 car so not much time to resolve this. Thanks to anubiszed for spotting it, I hadn't even noticed

Stash36 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:25 pm Mines a June 2009 car so not much time to resolve this. Thanks to anubiszed for spotting it, I hadn't even noticed

Arr, glad you've spotted this I was going to contact you. Could have sworn it was only 10 years, at least you have a couple of months to get a claim in now

Thought I'd add to this thread as my claim also being processed from today.
Took my 2015 E89 into Ocean Falmouth for Service & Inspection of roof corrosion/bubbled paint in same area as everyone else's - mainly driver's side forward corner of main roof panel. They were excellent, painstakingly checked the roof panels, took loads of photos and spent a fair amount of time discussing the issue with me. Now the wait for BMW to assess my warranty claim.
There seems to be an increasing number of cases of this issue - worrying.