Never let your 4 year in the car while chatting to a neighbour.
- Thread starter Buckley06
- Start date
Behr said:I have exactly the same but it wasn’t a four year old. It was a forty something ham-fisted-me prodding at it trying to figure out what it did. I still don’t know what it actually does
It’s for cars with manual roofs. Uk cars being mostly electric (yes there are one or two manual roof around apparently) it is of no use and does nothing. It’s the roof release button from memory.
I did the same not long ago. Lower the door and you'll see two small screws at the top.
Undo them and it slides off over the top. It will most likely be broken. It's two springs on plastic flaps. I just glued it back down. Serves no purpose.
Undo them and it slides off over the top. It will most likely be broken. It's two springs on plastic flaps. I just glued it back down. Serves no purpose.
I removed the roof catch on mine as it was slightly marking the roof lining in one spot as the roof folded up/down, plus the plastic manual release (the bit that's broke on yours) was causing the most annoying squeak with the roof down. Like others have said it really is over kill and was deleted entire around late 06. Once you removed the actual metal catch you can just glue the plastic manual release button closed.
However I wouldn't glue it closed unless you remove the metal roof catch as well. The reason being the catch does perform a role (when fitted) when the roofs down. You can see this for yourself if you press down on the middle of the roof when its lowered. It will either already be clicked into place, or you'll hear it click into place. You then can't manually pull the roof up without pressing the manual release. As soon as you hit the up button on the centre console etc the motor releases this catch. Obviously if the mech fails in some way and you've already glued up the manual release you've snookered yourself hence why you need to remove the metal catch as well.
However I wouldn't glue it closed unless you remove the metal roof catch as well. The reason being the catch does perform a role (when fitted) when the roofs down. You can see this for yourself if you press down on the middle of the roof when its lowered. It will either already be clicked into place, or you'll hear it click into place. You then can't manually pull the roof up without pressing the manual release. As soon as you hit the up button on the centre console etc the motor releases this catch. Obviously if the mech fails in some way and you've already glued up the manual release you've snookered yourself hence why you need to remove the metal catch as well.
To be honest its probably because most the time when you put the roof down it never actual clips into place anyway. I know mine never did unless I pushed down on it. At first I thought maybe mine was faulty but I quickly learn most prefacelifts behaved the same way. Its a fair guess that because it literally wasn't doing what it was intended to do, coupled to the fact it was marking roof linings, is probably why the whole thing got deleted on later carsRuss59 said: