Roof Mechanism Broken - Huge Repair bill, Help!!

[Bully5000]

Hi Guys

Hope you can help me here. Got into the car (2003 Z4 3.0i) on Thursday morning and tried to put the roof down. The roof released from the front windscreen fine and windows went down but after that nothing happened.

Took it to BMW Amsterdam who told me that the motor to take the roof down was broken and perhaps two cables. This was allegedly caused by some water leaking into the system. As a result I am landed with an expected bill of EUR 1500 in twi weeks time.

Firstly, does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing and is there anything I can do that doesn't involve spending a fortune?

Secondly, does anyone know of a place in Amsterdam that might be able to do this cheaper?

And thirdly do people have experience of BMW replacing parts where they could in fact just be repaired?

Fourthly, any other advice??

Thanks

Bully

[Zed Carer]

Hi - sorry to hear about your problem.

IIRC there are some posts on Z4-forum about this problem on the pre-facelift Z4's. It might be worth registering and doing a search.

Good luck and hope that you get it sorted.

[Hard Top]

Hi, ask the guys on this forum.
Helpful bunch of enthusiasts, they should point you in the right direction.

HT

http://www.z3forum.nl/index.php?act=home

[pingu]

This was allegedly caused by some water leaking into the system

Could this be blamed on a design fault?

Could you get BMW to pay for some of the cost?

[tonym]

:I had the same problem with myz4 2.5si took it to Lee Shannon independant in Bently near Farnham.The problem seems to be known as the roof motor gets to get Pickled after a while through leaves etc getting into the motor area and blocking the drainage holes mine was a large cost but luckily i had warranty direct cover who paid all the cost minus 50 pound excess the problem is not unusual.(

[gookah]

I replaced mine myself, £330 for a new motor from BMW, and 5 hours work in total, removing and refitting, You have to take the roof out completely.
But it is not a hard job just time consuming.
This is a common problem due to a bad design but BMW don't accept responsibility, on this particular repair, for cars not under their warranty. Mine is sealed properly now unlike the way BMW initially did this.

Guides are here
This will show you what is involved, and then you can decide if you fancy having a go yourself....

removing roof

replacing motor

2nd one shows the state of the motor and that's why it stops working.