Boot soft close failure-Fixed

[flybobbie]

Well set about fixing today.

 

[Anonymous]

Smug....no just good detective work, well done fella , it's good to share , book marked .

 

[sammyz]

Excellent detective work

 

[mattyp]

Fantastic work fella. Very satisfying and rewarding I imagine

 

[flybobbie]

Cable stripping machine I have used in the past;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2nm4B6T1rY

 

[obewan]

Great work and a great feeling I bet
Thanks for sharing

 

[Smartbear]

Good detective work
Rob

 

[Maniac]

A very useful post indeed for anyone else hitting this roadblock at some point.

 

[yoghurtman]

Good to know, thanks!

 

[Mad about cars]

Hi all


I have a z4 and the boot lid stoped closing

A new locking soft close mechanism is around £400 so
I thought I would have a look myself
Once the car boot lid is striped out so you can see the mechanism make sure you look at all the wires
You need to take the mechanism off the car but keep the wires connected

There is a Sensor on both motors either side of the mechanism with a white plastic cover that is where my problem occurred the wire was snapped inside the sleeve

So I got some wire blocks and booom problem solved

Save £400 and have a look first

 

[flybobbie]

So did your wires look clean cut and occurred at an equal length. Makes you wonder how many cars out with this problem waiting to happen.

 

[Ozie]

My softclose stopped working few months ago. Boot lights were working still. Yesterday it started to work again.... BUT now it's sucking the lid in and out right after. It does like 8 cycles and time between cycles is something like 35-40 seconds. What could this be?

 

[flybobbie]

Yep, that's what happens when the those wires finally give way.
It's a manufacturing fault.
BMW won't admit to it, how many cars would they have to call back?

 

[Ozie]

Yep, that's what happens when the those wires finally give way.
It's a manufacturing fault.
BMW won't admit to it, how many cars would they have to call back?

Yeah. Noticed also that boot light is not working anymore.

 

[ls19]

Great find, had to do this today as my first maintenance since purchase in Sept last year and nice and simple to fix although had trouble getting the white holders off.

 

[Player 1]

My softclose stopped working few months ago. Boot lights were working still. Yesterday it started to work again.... BUT now it's sucking the lid in and out right after. It does like 8 cycles and time between cycles is something like 35-40 seconds. What could this be?

It's the exact same problem, yours is just making/braking contact with the wire before it cycles all the way closed. Fixed this on my car last night after it became intermittent all of a sudden.

 

[chrisonian]

I had exactly the same symptoms and problem with my 2011 e89. I took off the liner, and after some slight jiggling these wires just broke loose! See the attached photo. I took the entire assembly off, soldered the wires, and reinstalled it. Now it's fine. Thank you for documenting this!

 

[RobbiZ4]

 

[flybobbie]

BMW should have called vehicles back to have these wires and switches replaced. It's a manufacturing fault.

Beginning to wonder as well about general roof failures as i replaced the two roof motor solenoids to cure a roof failure, the one's i removed appeared to have no faults, but the reader i had said that several microswitches and sensors had failed, which they hadn't.

So are the recorded failures real, or do the brains of the system assume failure because the rest of the sequence as not been detected.

 

[Amg01]

Have attempted this fix, on the left micro switch, having had my soft close fail yesterday. I stripped the wires and used connector blocks to pull them together, when I put it back together it just goes in a continual cycle of opening and closing, this is before trying to close the boot. Have been at it for a while and can't think what to try next. Anyone with any tips on what I am doing wrong or what I should try next, would be greatly appreciated? Do I used different connector blocks? Cant get out in the car in this nice weather which is making it worse.