Roof broken again, only half closes

[Pondrew]

Grabbed them off a seller on Ebay, £29 - no idea if thats a good price? but for £60 fix then its worth a punt!

They were £16 each from BMW when I got mine, so sounds about right. I would check they are genuine BMW parts TBH. Not heard of anyone buying 'pattern' or 'knock off' ones.
Depending on the year of car, they have different connector plugs aswell. I think they changed in 2013 with the facelift.

 

[Ole gits rule]

Grabbed them off a seller on Ebay, £29 - no idea if thats a good price? but for £60 fix then its worth a punt!

They were £16 each from BMW when I got mine, so sounds about right. I would check they are genuine BMW parts TBH. Not heard of anyone buying 'pattern' or 'knock off' ones.
Depending on the year of car, they have different connector plugs aswell. I think they changed in 2013 with the facelift.

Mine were £16 as well, never seen patterned ones anywhere

Good luck with the job

 

[Msport]

I think this might be the one you refer to where a video tutorial was made- that's very useful thanks, I'll keep searching for the others:

https://z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=137215

Thanks for all that, is this the thread you mention;

https://z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=95385#p1402669

No there is another one (or more than one actually as it has been discussed many times) which gives detailed instructions. I seem to remember another thread quite recently (end of last year?) where someone did it and made a youtube video.
They will all be in the E89 problems section, or maybe the E89 discussion section.

 

[SteveNortham]

Perfect - ill give this a whirl when parts arrive and report back if it fixes!

I think this might be the one you refer to where a video tutorial was made- that's very useful thanks, I'll keep searching for the others:

https://z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=137215

Thanks for all that, is this the thread you mention;

https://z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=95385#p1402669

No there is another one (or more than one actually as it has been discussed many times) which gives detailed instructions. I seem to remember another thread quite recently (end of last year?) where someone did it and made a youtube video.
They will all be in the E89 problems section, or maybe the E89 discussion section.

 

[Pondrew]

I think this might be the one you refer to where a video tutorial was made- that's very useful thanks, I'll keep searching for the others:

https://z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=137215

That's the fella! Hardest bit of the job I found was finding a suitable piece of wood to hold the boot lid open while doing the work. The hydraulic pressure won't hold for long enough!

 

[Stash36]

These roofs are failing big time. Book a road trip to Deutschland and get RobbiZ4 to renew everything en route is the best answer

 

[javis20]

Here is my video. I used an extension handle for a paint roller.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qcwZC1uah_o&feature=share8

 

[z4lincs]

The battery will cause major issues but by the description it sound like micro switches - I am sure Robbie will be along to give better advice

Yeah mine is currently under a cover in exactly the same state with the roof half up.. booked in for replacement micro switches next week to hopefully sort. Was intermittent for a few days and now won't budge.

Yeah mine was the same - switches were £16 each at that point prob around £25 now, labour was pretty steep on it at 2Hrs then the diagnostics, just glad mine was covered under warranty.

I think its pretty easy to do - few videos online on how to do it

Decided to give it a go this afternoon and total success, saved myself a couple of hundred quid there which was what the indy were going to charge

 

[Ole gits rule]

Yeah mine is currently under a cover in exactly the same state with the roof half up.. booked in for replacement micro switches next week to hopefully sort. Was intermittent for a few days and now won't budge.

Yeah mine was the same - switches were £16 each at that point prob around £25 now, labour was pretty steep on it at 2Hrs then the diagnostics, just glad mine was covered under warranty.

I think its pretty easy to do - few videos online on how to do it

Decided to give it a go this afternoon and total success, saved myself a couple of hundred quid there which was what the indy were going to charge

Great news all round - you can now tout for business the way these are failing this year

 

[SteveNortham]

Swapped mine out today, all working as it should again! nice and easy, about an hour I recon to do both sides, had to chop the connector and solder new ones on etc. but a very simple fix thankfully!

The cause seems to be...last summer, when I last washed the car - it seems water got into the boot, the spongy case for the pump, the bottom was saturated in water, pump was not impacted it seems but being sat for months with water in the boot seems to have caused a nice damp atmosphere in there and corroded the microswitches... lesson learnt, be less abusive with the jet wash and use the car more!

 

[Pondrew]

Decided to give it a go this afternoon and total success, saved myself a couple of hundred quid there which was what the indy were going to charge

Excellent!
Without the knowledge of the forum I think we would have all paid through the nose to have this work done. Don't think there can be many E89s left that haven't had at least one set of microswitches fail!

 

[Msport]

Thanks for the update gents, I am going to try doing mine also.

I have ordered the sensors from BMW, £19.90 each.

Any additional tips from having done the job yourselves?

My only question from the video is regarding marking the nuts - not having looked at the arm yet I assume the nut position can easily be changed hence why I need to mark the original position in the arm before removing?

Wish me luck

 

[SteveNortham]

Very straightforward swapping over I found

The nut position can be changed on the bracket, and has play in it to allow alignment etc - i just marked round it with a paint pen so could it them all back exactly where they were - no issue with roof opening etc once back on.

Thanks for the update gents, I am going to try doing mine also.

I have ordered the sensors from BMW, £19.90 each.

Any additional tips from having done the job yourselves?

My only question from the video is regarding marking the nuts - not having looked at the arm yet I assume the nut position can easily be changed hence why I need to mark the original position in the arm before removing?

Wish me luck

 

[z4lincs]

Very straightforward swapping over I found

The nut position can be changed on the bracket, and has play in it to allow alignment etc - i just marked round it with a paint pen so could it them all back exactly where they were - no issue with roof opening etc once back on.

Thanks for the update gents, I am going to try doing mine also.

I have ordered the sensors from BMW, £19.90 each.

Any additional tips from having done the job yourselves?

My only question from the video is regarding marking the nuts - not having looked at the arm yet I assume the nut position can easily be changed hence why I need to mark the original position in the arm before removing?

Wish me luck

Yeah paint pen did the trick for me. And I found mine were right at the far end of the bracket space and needed some pressure rather than just being where they sat naturally.

 

[Msport]

Thanks both, probably a stupid question but I'm in the middle of doing mine and can't unclip the microswitch connector - any tips?

 

[Msport]

All fixed!!

Thanks so much everyone, well chuffed

In the end it took me about 3 hours in total, but that is because I didn't know what I was doing and took more trim etc than I need to off.

In the end I couldn't disconnect that electrical connector so I just cut the cable off higher up and spliced on a new microswitch - then did that the other side in about 10 minutes and avoided needing to cut all the cable ties already in place.

Hoping that's fixed it permanently - no lights on so far and roof works perfectly again