Unusual Roof Problem. (Not the Motor!)

[MACK]

Ok, had a look through numerous roof issue threads but didn't find anything quite like what I experienced yesterday.

Had the roof up and down as usual (usually using the gaptech + through the remote) till late last night when I went to close it. The cycle started as normal with the windows beginning to drop then they stopped half way, no lights on the roof switches. Thinking it was a glitch I tried the cycle again no joy. Then I got in the car turned the ignition on, still no lights on the roof switches and again no joy. Tried starting the car still nothing. Disconnected the battery to reboot everything, still nothing. No lights on switches at any time. Checked the roof drains etc and they were clear, motor wasn't flooded and hadn't been in rain for at least a few days. I ended up using the manual roof closing procedure.

Came out this morning and tried everything again still nothing. Then I drove for an hour or so and tried again and everything works, including the gaptech through the key etc. Its all been fine since but I am worried about what the hell happened.

My understanding is with motor or microswitch issues you get lights on the roof switches, here I got nothing, no lights or noises from motors etc.

Anyone experienced this/have any ideas

Thanks

 

[markplant]

Not heard that one before , but I'll give a default answer to start with all electrical issues , how old is you battery on the car

 

[MACK]

Not heard that one before , but I'll give a default answer to start with all electrical issues , how old is you battery on the car

I probably should have mention the battery is only 10 months old. The original failed nov last year and its got a decent one on now with a 5 year warranty. I know that it could fail prematurely but I honestly dont think its that as the car starts fine, starter spins quickly etc. Everything else still worked at the time and still does, its a bit of an odd one!

Can someone confirm when the motors play up or the microswitch fails you get lights on the roof switches etc. That's my understanding anyway.

 

[Number5]

That's sounds exactly like the symptoms you get if the roof module is unplugged.

Check the connectors into the module, located in the rear passenger quarter. ( Behind the passenger seat, remove the little grille and storage pocket. It will be there, near where the motor lives.) Possibly a loose multi plug connection - or die-ing roof module, which wont be much more than £40 to replace.

 

[MACK]

That's sounds exactly like the symptoms you get if the roof module is unplugged.

Check the connectors into the module, located in the rear passenger quarter. ( Behind the passenger seat, remove the little grille and storage pocket. It will be there, near where the motor lives.) Possibly a loose multi plug connection - or die-ing roof module, which wont be much more than £40 to replace.

Thanks, that sounds promising. I will look into that tomorrow. If the module is failing are replacements plug and play or do they need coding?

 

[Number5]

Thanks, that sounds promising. I will look into that tomorrow. If the module is failing are replacements plug and play or do they need coding?

Yes, Plug and Play I beleive. If you're not sure what you're looking for, look at the picture in this ebay link. (There are cheaper available, but its a good picture)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-Z4-E85-FOLDING-ROOF-MODULE-ECU-6925897-6936801-/262626156317?hash=item3d25bd1f1d:g:Co8AAOSwFqJWnYU~

 

[Anonymous]

That's sounds exactly like the symptoms you get if the roof module is unplugged.

Check the connectors into the module, located in the rear passenger quarter. ( Behind the passenger seat, remove the little grille and storage pocket. It will be there, near where the motor lives.) Possibly a loose multi plug connection - or die-ing roof module, which wont be much more than £40 to replace.

Only had this issue once on a car and it turned out to be corrosion in the connectors for the module , at some point the drains had been blocked and water had managed to ingress to the area where the modules and connectors are mounted as No5 describes ( if you haven't got a stowage bin then remove the speaker cover and air vent grille to gain access behind the panel which you'll have to pull aside and up from the bottom ,you can then get your hand in ) .

 

[MACK]

That's sounds exactly like the symptoms you get if the roof module is unplugged.

Check the connectors into the module, located in the rear passenger quarter. ( Behind the passenger seat, remove the little grille and storage pocket. It will be there, near where the motor lives.) Possibly a loose multi plug connection - or die-ing roof module, which wont be much more than £40 to replace.

Only had this issue once on a car and it turned out to be corrosion in the connectors for the module , at some point the drains had been blocked and water had managed to ingress to the area where the modules and connectors are mounted as No5 describes ( if you haven't got a stowage bin then remove the speaker cover and air vent grille to gain access behind the panel which you'll have to pull aside and up from the bottom ,you can then get your hand in ) .

Thanks, that sounds promising. I will look into that tomorrow. If the module is failing are replacements plug and play or do they need coding?

Yes, Plug and Play I beleive. If you're not sure what you're looking for, look at the picture in this ebay link. (There are cheaper available, but its a good picture)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-Z4-E85-FOLDING-ROOF-MODULE-ECU-6925897-6936801-/262626156317?hash=item3d25bd1f1d:g:Co8AAOSwFqJWnYU~

Thanks some really useful info. I will be getting on this later, hopefully its something obvious, easy and of course cheap to fix!

 

[MACK]

I think I will pull out my gaptech as well and check the 5 connections on that. I never fitted it as it was on the car when I bought it. In fact thinking about it the only time I have ever seen it is when I had the centre console out for wrapping and I didn't pay any real attention to it.

After starting this thread and getting some responses I have been doing some searches using "roof module" as the key words rather than "roof wont go up" or "roof not working" etc. I have come across a number of posts which imply folks have had issues similar to mine with the gaptech module, particularly if scotch locks have been used. I will remove them if they have been used on mine and either hard wire it or use connector strip.

I guess unless I find something obvious with the roof module or gap tech this could become a process of elimination. Might be a long winded one as this is the first time I have had anything like this happen in 14 months of ownership.

 

[Anonymous]

The gap tech units are pretty good, the scotchloc connectors are not . Due to the differing thickness of the wires being connected and the nature of scotchloc's my advice would be to solder it in . Even if you find that the gap tech is the issue after soldering it in , you have eliminated the connection issue and you can easily cut the troublesome gap tech out leaving an easy re-solder job by leaving the existing cables to re-connect too.

Normally with a connection issues I have seen though you do still get tell tail lights in the switches, but if it's a power cable connection issue on the gap tech, I guess that might cause the lack of switch light . Normal the power is taken from the cigarette lighter power supply , but as I say if you solder them all in , that issue is taken away .

 

[pvr]

Good point on that - soldering all the way. Remember to not use a ground solder iron, but use a gas one to avoid shorting your elecs.

 

[MACK]

Ok just to update this. Nothing worse than folks not updating threads!

I finally got around to looking into this today after deciding to stay in the lakes for a few extra days. In that time I had no re-occurrence of what happened until last night when I went to open the roof through the remote (Gaptech). The windows went down half way then everything stopped. This time I had a solid (non flashing) red night on the roof down button. I jumped in the car turned the ignition on and tried to lower the roof, after about a seconds delay the roof burst into life and did its thing. I put the roof up and down a number of times last night and this morning using both the Gaptech and the buttons and I have had no further issues but it was definitely time to take a look at things.

Started off by inspecting the Gaptech. I was pleasantly surprised to find all the connections had already been soldered. Just to be sure I doubled checked each one for a good solid connection and everything was fine and well insulated before and after etc.

I then moved onto the roof module itself. This is where it got a little interesting, when I checked the wiring plugs insitu the smaller one seemed to move just a little. I suspect it was slightly loose, but the movement wasn't massive so cant be 100% it wasn't already plugged in properly. To be thorough I whipped the module out disconnected it and opened it up to inspect it for anything obvious (water damage/scorching etc). Nothing, everything is fine, the plugs are all fine and it doesn't look like water has ever got into that general area. Re-assembled everything making doubly sure the plugs were home properly and so far everything is good.

Obviously at this point I hoping its a case of the small plug not being connected properly but I have to say I'm not 100% convinced. If it glitches again I will be whipping out the Gaptech for a few weeks or so to see what happens and go on to the roof module if issues still persist.

Once again thanks for all the help/pointers with this.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok just to update this. Nothing worse than folks not updating threads!

I finally got around to looking into this today after deciding to stay in the lakes for a few extra days. In that time I had no re-occurrence of what happened until last night when I went to open the roof through the remote (Gaptech). The windows went down half way then everything stopped. This time I had a solid (non flashing) red night on the roof down button. I jumped in the car turned the ignition on and tried to lower the roof, after about a seconds delay the roof burst into life and did its thing. I put the roof up and down a number of times last night and this morning using both the Gaptech and the buttons and I have had no further issues but it was definitely time to take a look at things.

Started off by inspecting the Gaptech. I was pleasantly surprised to find all the connections had already been soldered. Just to be sure I doubled checked each one for a good solid connection and everything was fine and well insulated before and after etc.

I then moved onto the roof module itself. This is where it got a little interesting, when I checked the wiring plugs insitu the smaller one seemed to move just a little. I suspect it was slightly loose, but the movement wasn't massive so cant be 100% it wasn't already plugged in properly. To be thorough I whipped the module out disconnected it and opened it up to inspect it for anything obvious (water damage/scorching etc). Nothing, everything is fine, the plugs are all fine and it doesn't look like water has ever got into that general area. Re-assembled everything making doubly sure the plugs were home properly and so far everything is good.

Obviously at this point I hoping its a case of the small plug not being connected properly but I have to say I'm not 100% convinced. If it glitches again I will be whipping out the Gaptech for a few weeks or so to see what happens and go on to the roof module if issues still persist.

Once again thanks for all the help/pointers with this.

Good work fella, at least you have crossed a few issues off the list. See what happens now over a few days or so, now you have checked the module ( did you check the main power connection to the motor at the same time ? It's a twin cable ,thicker black cables , one with a blue tracer and one with a green tracer as memory serves that has a joint with a plug connector near the module, could be that ) .inknow you said the drains were clear and it's not been flooded, but it could have been before you owned the car and the water is already in the casing . As I say Gap tech are normally pretty good,so I think I'd be checking the motor and casing now if it happens again, at worst you can relocate it to the boot whilst your at it but your symptoms would now lead me to believe the motor is sitting in water in its casing and the corrosion is occasionally stopping the motor from spinning up correctly, this would then cause a solid red light , like you experienced . It could even been a corroded power terminal at the base of the motor that occasionally doesn't make contact, and just you sitting in the car was enough to move it a knat's cock to reconnect it .

 

[MACK]

Ok just to update this. Nothing worse than folks not updating threads!

I finally got around to looking into this today after deciding to stay in the lakes for a few extra days. In that time I had no re-occurrence of what happened until last night when I went to open the roof through the remote (Gaptech). The windows went down half way then everything stopped. This time I had a solid (non flashing) red night on the roof down button. I jumped in the car turned the ignition on and tried to lower the roof, after about a seconds delay the roof burst into life and did its thing. I put the roof up and down a number of times last night and this morning using both the Gaptech and the buttons and I have had no further issues but it was definitely time to take a look at things.

Started off by inspecting the Gaptech. I was pleasantly surprised to find all the connections had already been soldered. Just to be sure I doubled checked each one for a good solid connection and everything was fine and well insulated before and after etc.

I then moved onto the roof module itself. This is where it got a little interesting, when I checked the wiring plugs insitu the smaller one seemed to move just a little. I suspect it was slightly loose, but the movement wasn't massive so cant be 100% it wasn't already plugged in properly. To be thorough I whipped the module out disconnected it and opened it up to inspect it for anything obvious (water damage/scorching etc). Nothing, everything is fine, the plugs are all fine and it doesn't look like water has ever got into that general area. Re-assembled everything making doubly sure the plugs were home properly and so far everything is good.

Obviously at this point I hoping its a case of the small plug not being connected properly but I have to say I'm not 100% convinced. If it glitches again I will be whipping out the Gaptech for a few weeks or so to see what happens and go on to the roof module if issues still persist.

Once again thanks for all the help/pointers with this.

Good work fella, at least you have crossed a few issues off the list. See what happens now over a few days or so, now you have checked the module ( did you check the main power connection to the motor at the same time ? It's a twin cable ,thicker black cables , one with a blue tracer and one with a green tracer as memory serves that has a joint with a plug connector near the module, could be that ) . As I say Gap tech are normally pretty good, I think I'd be checking the motor and casing now if it happens again, at worst you can relocate it to the boot whilst your at it but your symptoms would now lead me to believe the motor is sitting in water in its casing and the corrosion is occasionally stopping the motor from spinning up correctly, this would then cause a solid red light , like you experienced . It could even been a corroded power terminal at the base of the motor that occasionally doesn't make contact, and just you sitting in the car was enough to move it a knat's cock to reconnect it .

To be honest I was planning on moving the motor soon anyway. This may be the kick up the bum I need to get on with it. Not sure its the motor though, the reason I say that is this afternoon I put the car on a scanner at my friends garage and apart from the usual codes I expected as a result of disconnecting the battery last week there were a couple of codes for open circuits in the roof module relating to the switch. Not sure if this is just misleading me or actually the real source of the issues I have been having. I am going to wait for it to play up again (hopefully it won't!) and then see if I get any new codes in there.