Roof Motor

[Georgio]

It really annoys me that so many of us are now affected by this issue which is quite clearly a manufacturing/design defect and is not a cheap or easy fix. BMW should be held responsible here..... just my two cents

I'm a designer and after having my roof fail and then renovating the roof motor myself it's obvious that by placing the roof motor where they did and making the exit drain so small and easily clogged, they were basically engineering a fail during the lifetime of the car.
Think about it, bringing in additional revenue over the course of the average 7 year lifetime of the car is welcome by the dealers.
It would not surprise me one bit to find that there is an expected fail timeline with proposed costs for most modern cars cynical as that sounds.

 

[tug]

The main problem is not so much the drain hole, which is important to keep clear in any case, the problem lies in the motor housing itself. The reason why there is water ingress is basically where the hydro leads and the power leads enter the housing, it is not sealed! Water slips down the cables and ends up lying at the bottom and slowly fills the casing with water because there is nowhere for it to go.

Those who have had their roof out will notice that the leads appear out of the housing at the top, facing where the roof allows the water in!

The person who designed this housing is basically a..... :wkr:

Although he is probably sitting on a hefty pension by now and doesn't give a toss! :x