Roof catch not working when open

M

mason storm

Active member
I've just purchased A Z4 2.5 05 reg and already have a problem (should be under dealer warrantee but still annoying. The problem seems to be that when the roof is almost fully down the catch is not quite going into the hole behond the seats. It works if you give it a little help. It looks like the roof just needs a couplle of mm more downward movement??
 
It's a bit of a common problem.

Try this - on the pic below you can see the roof has started to fold in at the corners roughly half way down - for the next few times you lower the roof, stop halfway and then fold the roof back out again, and you should find it will lock, and hopefully after doing this manually a few times the roof will start to do it by itself.

Does that make sense?

paris3-lift-top.jpg
 
I had this, but mine was 2 issues together. Firstly a faulty catch and then like you the bracket did not quite fit....

So a small bend with the spanner and all is well again :D
 
thanks guys,

wondermike, do you mean when it's half way open I should push the sides in? or just simply open half way, close and open all the way?

I have it booked back in with the dealer next friday so if I can't sort it it's down to them under warantee.
 
No when it's halfway down pull the sides out, in the pic above they are pushed in. Does yours look like the pic above whne the roof is halfway down? If you posted a pic it would be clearer to show you.
 
Well even after trying the pull the sides out excercise the hood won't go all the way down.

The dealer has checked it out and said that the hydrolic mechnism isn't giving enough power and needs replacing, luckily under warrantee which they will be doing in a couple of weeks time. Fingers crossed this sorts the problem out.
 
What a joke this has been so far.

The car was left with my dealer last Thursday for a replacement hydraulic system to be fitted (seemed excesive to me). Should have collected same day but surprise surprise it wasn't ready. Collected it Friday Evening to find the probelm is still there, even worse they removed the thin bar on the car that the catch is supposed to fit into to keep it secure.

The dealer said that this is a new hydraulic system that dispenses with the metal bar that the catch fits into and that the new system should not need this. I said that as far as i could see the only difference from when i dropped the car off was that they had removed the metal bar and that the roof still does not sit flush with the bodywork of the car. If anything it's worse as i can't even manually give it a helping hand to let the catch sit under the missing metal bar. They said that I should pop back today and they would have the tecnician adjust the roof.

Well I turned up this morning thinking surely if it could be adjusted they could have done this in the first place. My suspisions were correct as 1/2 hour of waiting resulted in the service man to tell me that they couldn't adjust it. They say they have another car with this new hydraulic system that also does not allow the roof to sit flush with the back of the car. But they would ring BMW to find out what is going on.

Sorry if my description of the metal bar is confusing but it's basicaly the part that the roof catch locks under to hold it securely in place.

Not a happy bunny :(
 
The latest message I had from the dealer is that this is how the new hydraulic system works. So they are basically saying the new system means the hood won't sit flat, which is no better than when I came into them with the problem?????

Has anyone else had their hydraulic system replaced and if so does their roof sit flush with the back of the car?
 
I did pop into our local Dealer the other day and looked at the roof on a new 08 plate car in the showroom.

Ok, the car had been left a long time in the showroom, but you could pull and lift the roof, it was not held in position unlike the older cars with the locking latch. It looked flat though.

Also all the holes were there just no center latch or plate....

Not sure if anyone with a newer roof system can help clear this up.
 
Thanks for the info guys, so it seems like they genuinely did get rid of the part that the roof catch went into on later cars.

The roof seems pretty static in that it doesn't pull up by hand.

Still annoying that it doesn't sit flush with the back of the car, as this was the reason that I took the car in in the first place.

Do all new cars have a flush fitting roof?
 
mason storm said:
Thanks for the info guys, so it seems like they genuinely did get rid of the part that the roof catch went into on later cars.

The roof seems pretty static in that it doesn't pull up by hand.

Still annoying that it doesn't sit flush with the back of the car, as this was the reason that I took the car in in the first place.

Do all new cars have a flush fitting roof?
Click to expand...
It seems pretty flush to me....
Foldedhood.jpg
 
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