Toulouse, France
Hi everyone,
I'm dealing with a frustrating roof issue on my 2010 Z4 35i, and I'm hoping some of you have seen this exact combination of symptoms before.
The roof was working perfectly, and about 20 minutes after a successful open/close cycle, it simply stopped cooperating on the way to open it. The rear window section lifts and tilts correctly every time. The problem is specifically that the boot lid never opens to receive the roof. I can see and feel it move very slightly right at the start, and then it just stops dead, even though the pump keeps running audibly the whole time. It doesn't cut out on its own either, it just keeps forcing away until I release the button myself. I've tried helping it along by pulling on the boot lid by hand during the cycle, but there's no give at all beyond that initial small movement.
What's been ruling things out one by one: there's never any fault code showing up, even across multiple attempts. There's no visible hydraulic leak anywhere. The boot opens and closes completely normally in everyday cargo use through the remote or the button, and the soft-close still pulls it shut properly every time, so the standard JBE lock and latch seem to be working fine. I've tested this in both cool and hot weather (around 35°C) with no difference in behavior at all. It fails at exactly the same point every single time, no randomness to it, and there was no obvious trigger event (no impact, nothing left in the boot, nothing unusual done to the car beforehand).
Most recently, I had both salmon relays replaced as a precaution, since that failure mode seemed to match the "pump keeps running until manually stopped" behavior, but it made zero difference.
At this point I'm leaning toward either the hydraulic catches on the sides of the boot lid (the ones that release before it lifts to accept the roof, since these apparently run on their own small cylinders and could have an alignment or internal seal issue that wouldn't throw a code), or some kind of localized pressure loss affecting just the boot circuit without touching the rear window circuit. Has anyone run into this specific pattern before, partial movement with no fault code even when forcing it, and if so what did you check or replace that actually fixed it? Trying to figure out the most sensible next step before pulling trim panels blind.
Thanks in advance for any pointers
I'm dealing with a frustrating roof issue on my 2010 Z4 35i, and I'm hoping some of you have seen this exact combination of symptoms before.
The roof was working perfectly, and about 20 minutes after a successful open/close cycle, it simply stopped cooperating on the way to open it. The rear window section lifts and tilts correctly every time. The problem is specifically that the boot lid never opens to receive the roof. I can see and feel it move very slightly right at the start, and then it just stops dead, even though the pump keeps running audibly the whole time. It doesn't cut out on its own either, it just keeps forcing away until I release the button myself. I've tried helping it along by pulling on the boot lid by hand during the cycle, but there's no give at all beyond that initial small movement.
What's been ruling things out one by one: there's never any fault code showing up, even across multiple attempts. There's no visible hydraulic leak anywhere. The boot opens and closes completely normally in everyday cargo use through the remote or the button, and the soft-close still pulls it shut properly every time, so the standard JBE lock and latch seem to be working fine. I've tested this in both cool and hot weather (around 35°C) with no difference in behavior at all. It fails at exactly the same point every single time, no randomness to it, and there was no obvious trigger event (no impact, nothing left in the boot, nothing unusual done to the car beforehand).
Most recently, I had both salmon relays replaced as a precaution, since that failure mode seemed to match the "pump keeps running until manually stopped" behavior, but it made zero difference.
At this point I'm leaning toward either the hydraulic catches on the sides of the boot lid (the ones that release before it lifts to accept the roof, since these apparently run on their own small cylinders and could have an alignment or internal seal issue that wouldn't throw a code), or some kind of localized pressure loss affecting just the boot circuit without touching the rear window circuit. Has anyone run into this specific pattern before, partial movement with no fault code even when forcing it, and if so what did you check or replace that actually fixed it? Trying to figure out the most sensible next step before pulling trim panels blind.
Thanks in advance for any pointers