Found the source of annoying squeaks, but it seems to be a design flaw

[daniel_c]

I've had the car for a few months now and have had a constant issue with annoying squeaking while the roof is up. It's a high-frequency squeak behind my head that sounds almost like radio static, if that makes sense.
It's a bigger issue for me than it sounds, as I'm in Sweden where we have very coarse asphalt almost everywhere (I guess for it to last longer as most people here use studded tires during winters), meaning the vibrations from the road cause the squeaks almost at all times.

Anyhow, I managed to track down the source of it, and surprisingly, it comes from the roof fabric/linning making contact with the rollbars and the flaps that open/close depending on whether the roof is up or down. I'm not sure about the terminology here but the image should explain it better. I was surprised the roof made such a strong/tight contact with the bars and flaps, before I actually looked, I would have guessed there would be some space between them - that the roof cleared them - but that isn't the case.

In order to make sure this was it, I wedged a microfibre cloth between the roof and the bars/flaps on both sides, and sure enough, the squeaking completely disappeared. It was like I was in a different car!

But the question is, what the heck can be done about this? It seems like a design issue to me, that would affect all cars, but of course, not everyone seems to have the same problem. This makes me wonder whether my roof is somehow misaligned and it's not actually supposed to make contact with those components?

I would really appreciate if someone could check and just confirm that your roof is also making contact here. But even if that is the case, and the fabric of my roof is such that it makes this rubbing noise, I really don't know what to do about it.

Any ideas?

(I've researched the forum and read through most "cabin noise" threads I think, and couldn't find anything specific to this, but do apologise if this has already been discussed)

 

[Boyo]

Just checked mine, which is a 2023 car, and the hood makes contact with the roll over hoops and flaps as per your image of your car. Fortunately mine does not rattle at all. With regard to a fix, I wonder if your hood is slightly misaligned making the hood having to heavy a contact with the roll over hoops. I guess there must be some way to adjust the alignment. Good luck and give us an update if you do resolve it.

 

[daniel_c]

Just checked mine, which is a 2023 car, and the hood makes contact with the roll over hoops and flaps as per your image of your car. Fortunately mine does not rattle at all. With regard to a fix, I wonder if your hood is slightly misaligned making the hood having to heavy a contact with the roll over hoops. I guess there must be some way to adjust the alignment. Good luck and give us an update if you do resolve it.

Thanks for the input man!

Next step is to put the cloth only between the rollbars and the roof, and let the flaps be as normal. That'll hopefully narrow it down even further.

And just to clarify, what I'm hearing is not a rattle per say, it sounds exactly like two pieces of plastic microscopically rubbing against each other as the car vibrates, which is what makes me think the roof lining vibrating over the rollbars is causing it. The roof lining doesn't seem to be just regular cloth, but perhaps has some plastic in it, and it could maybe be just a case of the rollbars having been washed with something that exaggerates the friction and cases the sound.

I'm trying to sat positive

 

[Boyo]

I should add that the flaps are spring loaded and as such rest tightly against the hood in my car. Good luck

 

[Schaef]

The flaps are made out of two pieces, maybe they make the noise.
I have a Z4 2020 and also makes contact but no sound.
Sometimes I hear a squeak and I think it's the rubber from the hood near the door.

 

[Roadster_Surrey]

I had that squicking sound on one side and my solution was to drive without passenger (UK side) rollbar cover. I couldn't be bothered to waste my time at dealership, so just removed the cover.

 

[F1SpaceMonkey]

I'm having the exact same issue, the passenger side is rattling when the roof is up. if i drive and hold the material/roof above the roll hoop the noise goes away.

 

[daniel_c]

I'm away on vacation so haven't had a lot of time to keep investigating this, but did narrow it down further.

Found a section of road that was particularly rough, where the squeaking was clearly present, that I could use for testing. So just to double-check, I removed the cloths between the flaps/rollbars and roof completely and drove it - squeak city! Put the cloths back, just like in the image I posted above, and the squeaks disappeared as expected. Then in order to figure out whether it is the flaps or the rollbars that is the problem, I wedged the cloths only between the rollbars and the roof - and the squeaking is gone.

So the problem is not the flaps but the rollbars.

The squeaking doesn't happen when the roof is down (maybe you could argue that the wind noise masks them out but I'm quite sure that isn't the case - the car is dead solid with no noise or creaks/squeaks/rattles with the roof down) which means the squeaks must come from the friction between the rollbars and the roof.

In a way, this is a good thing, since it seems like such a trivial issue, but on the other hand, if this is the case, I really don't know what to do about it, other than attaching pieces of cloth/felt to either the top of the rollbars or those particular areas of the roof itself, but that really feels like a low-rent solution for a car like this. And I also can't imagine what the dealer service could possibly do about this.