Who's used aftermarket sunroof track clips/guides?

[geargrinder]

OK so my car has been down now for almost 2 weeks for the massively annoying sunroof repair. Had it really close but something wasn't right, basically I made a couple small errors requiring glass to come out 2 more times, then, just as I was figuring out all the things I did wrong and had it really sorted out, I did what everybody says not to which is ran the motor full to the stops back and forth while it wasn't properly adjusted and the front stops in,, and ended up shattering the brand new plastic sliders. Garrgh. Dumbass.

Brings me to my question.

Who has used the aftermarket plastic sunroof guides that are available on eBay etc, and how have they worked out?

Background if you don't know:

What I'm referring to is that the parts that break come from BMW in an assembly/kit including a number of parts, and which used to be $30 per side, but now are over a $hundo each. In reality the 90% broken thing is this one little plastic slider which is imminently replaceable on its own but BMW deems it better to make us buy the whole kit. When it was $30... no big deal... now not so much.
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw...ft-54128202295

Guys are now selling replacements however some (including first sets that I got) seem to be 3D printed.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/272635015256

Other are clearly injection molded knockoffs of BMW parts.
https://www.amazon.com/Sunroof-Slide.../dp/B01D0BYADS

My concern is if these are as strong as the plastic bits from BMW, or will they have a ridiculously short lifespan, requiring me to constantly annually take my roof apart. The 3D ones I have I'm definitely a bit skeptical of... given how annoying this job is (although I'm good at it now...) I'd rather never do it ever again if possible...

So... who's used these, who did you get them from, and how do they look?

[6spd540]

I bought a set off ebay to replace the new ones that I had replaced along with all the parts that came in the dealer kits(broke because I did a one touch close with memory lost from battery disconnect). I don't recall if they were knock offs or real BMW parts as it was several years ago. I do remember they came from Europe and cost around $15.

I wouldn't touch the 3D printed ones but the injection molded ones should OK. Having done the sunroof repair more than once myself I wouldn't want have to do it again so I'm glad the ones I got seem to be holding up just fine and I didn't have to waste money for the dealer kit that has a bunch of parts I didn't need.

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[geargrinder]

Cool. Thanks for the input.

Yeah. I'm gonna skip the 3D's I think. thinking from here on I'll use the manual crank to move it for testing. I'm not 100% clear on how I screwed up or what is or isn't safe. I did move the glass back and forth a number of times with the motor and glass in fine and had no issues until the very last time. I have the Bentley procedure but frankly it's not crystal clear about what not to do and I thought I was doing all the right things. I guess the key is , if you've lost memory, to start in tilt posituon , then follow the instructions first to send it all the way back on a full cycle. But ill use the hand crank to carefully test it a few times first, and pray it doesnt smash things on the first try again. Found some post where somebody said they went through a pile of the sliders before they figured out what not to do.

[gmak]

This may also be valid for the E39. I did this on m E60 M5i after a long battery disconnect.

[geargrinder]

Thanks for that mak. The Bentley 'boilerplate' video is irritating ("legal preamble! well vented workspace! use proper safety equipment! dn't be stupid!") but the way they describe the process is better than how it is described in the paper manual, and clarifies to me what the steps are for, and gives a hint of what goes wrong when it smashes stuff itself.

So it's clear there's 2 parts... 1. first part of the procedure sets the 'front / tilt' location so it won't go too far forward and says "this is fully forward in tilt mode"... then 2. second part resets basically the timing / current draw for the full span of the length of retract and closed so it knows 'where to look for fully open and fully closed to be'...

I guess if the module is crunching parts, I think it is either because the glass is physically jammed, or, it doesn't know where the front/tilt spot is, thinks the roof is further back than it is, and keeps pushing it forward. Therefore ideally you need to start this procedure with the roof in the flat/closed position I think.

Because my 'rain tray deflector' was jamming things up (one of the things I screwed up - or didn't notice was screwed up is better way to say...) I think when I tried to do the initialization earlier, it did fine for the front parts, but then it coudln't push the glass all the way back, so it decided "OK that spot must be the full back position" when really it was only 2/3 of the way back. Then went it went forward it thought "OK need to push this guy forward X seconds at least..." and then hit the stops and crunched it.

The interesting / 'clever' thing about these mechanisms is that they dont' have separate tilt and slide mechanisms, which everybody who hasn't been inside them thinks they do. There's one single slide mechanism, but when it goes past the 'flat' point, the slider gets stopped, making the slider-on-lever mechanism jack the glass instead of slide it.

When the parts get broken, its because either something jammed the sunroof glass so it wouldn't tilt, and then the motor broke the plastic instead of being able to tilt (what happened to me), or, I think in some cases you could actually break the plastic pretty easily when its' in 'tilt mode' by pushing down on the top of the glass.

While this has been a big PITA, I will say once you are down with how it all works it isn't that bad, and while its a bit complex with lots of sub-mechanisms, once you understand them, any functional fault is pretty easy to figure out. But dayum if its your first time at the rodeo its a PITA and takes a while to absorb. Interestingly I think my shade-slider was screwed up for ages - it always was a bit sticky and jammy... that was another of the mistakes I meant, now that I have it in the right position it slides like buttah and makes it clear it was forked up before.

[philly98540]

Damn thats sounds as bad as doing guides first time around.

[6spd540]

This may also be valid for the E39. I did this on m E60 M5i after a long battery disconnect.

For the E39 you just press and hold the tilt button for 5sec.

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[geargrinder]

For the E39 you just press and hold the tilt button for 5sec.

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Actually I think my paper manual says roughly the same as that vid - press and hold tilt for the 5 secs, then release for like 3 secs, then press and hold again until it does a full self-cycle. Which would account for the 2 different calibrations. But there's something in the manual about early vs late sunroof too, presumably a facelift change, I didn't loolk at the 'early' procedure but perhaps its what youre talking about. a

[6spd540]

Actually I think my paper manual says roughly the same as that vid - press and hold tilt for the 5 secs, then release for like 3 secs, then press and hold again until it does a full self-cycle. Which would account for the 2 different calibrations. But there's something in the manual about early vs late sunroof too, presumably a facelift change, I didn't loolk at the 'early' procedure but perhaps its what youre talking about. a

Yeah mine is pre-face lift. After just doing the tilt part it will stop in the close position when pushing close and one touch open/close also stop in correct location. I don't see why the facelift models would be different since they also use GM3(maybe newer software). IIRC E46(GM5) had similar procedure as the video.

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[fullthrottle540]

They don't make metal replacements?

[adm750]

ha ! leave it to you GG to post something like this right before I get cracking on mine !!! The lifters on mine broke when I went over a hard dip in the road on the way to work one morning. The chassis took a hard compression and it broke the damned things and the glass dropped back down from vent position. I picked my lift pieces up from bavauto some time back. I can't remember the outlay but it was a sight less than factory....and seems to have just the pieces needed. I have put this off for a while but I planned to "knock it out" it this weekend. I've never done this job on an e39....but have watched a million youtube hacks do it...sooooo...why can't I...? lol... Mine would never do the initialization step when holding the button in the vent position....(we'd have to do that quite frequently to cars up here due to the rough roadways shifting the glass....) so it makes me leery of something else being wrong. Also - the glass doesn't go back as far into the roof opening as my '97 528i but I have NO history of the sunroof ever being repaired/removed in this car in all the service we performed on it, nor in any repair records the PO had from some vehicle-to-vehicle scuffles over it's lifetime. My better judgement (which is really not much better than my normal judgement...) tells me I'll be pulling the carriage out to make it perfect. No work has ever been done sunroof of the '97 and, even at nearly a quarter million miles, it still works flawlessly for my wife. I may change my mind about tackling it tomorrow as we take the wagon on a couple long roadtrips in the next few weeks. Again - thanks makin' a brutha think twice.

[geargrinder]

Adm - So if it doesn't go back all the way , I'm gonna bet the rain deflector thing has fallen off its clips. If it comes out it sits behind the main mechanism and then jams it from going all the way back. Axe how I know. That is honestly a pretty easy fix once the glass is out... Definitely do NOT drop the cassette until you are sure you have to...

- - - Updated - - -

They don't make metal replacements?

Ha! Who is this "they" you speak of?

Also: No.

Also: pretty sure it's on purpose and that's a "sacrificial" part by engineering design. So that in case the glass jams you get broken operation and not motor binding up parts and smashing glass and whatnot.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

They should have used delrin, instead of regular plastic, those dumbasses....

[geargrinder]

Funny you say steve, the oem parts are stamped "POM" meaning basically Delrin, but also indeed they look "cheap". If they really wanted to make it strong but outa plastic, some kind of filled nylon would prob be best? Looks a lot like it was intentionally a "first fail" part.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Funny you say steve, the oem parts are stamped "POM" meaning basically Delrin, but also indeed they look "cheap". If they really wanted to make it strong but outa plastic, some kind of filled nylon would prob be best? Looks a lot like it was intentionally a "first fail" part.

They are??? Lol.... Did not know that.

Now that you have this thread going, I am getting this queasy feeling that one of my sunroofs are gonna take a dump on me. Was thinking about it today, because of the thread, when I parked my car at work and tilted the sunroof open to ease some heat out of the car for the day.

[computiNATEor]

Has anyone here removed an entire sunroof cartridge from an E39 sedan? My totaled car has a freshly rebuilt sunroof, but my automatic car that I'm cleaning up to sell has busted sliders (or at least lifters). If I can pull the entire cartridge out from both cars and just plug-n-play them it would be nice. Is that possible?

[geargrinder]

Nate - FYI for your google reference, the normal terminology is 'sunroof cassette'. I've not done it, but the big thing is you have to drop the headliner. Then just various steps of unbolting.

Here's one example but if you google E39 sunroof cassette there's a lotta pix and threads on it...
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...unroof-removal

[tptrsn]

I really have to get back on that guy about starting to crank out those killer sunroof delete panels... Thanks for the reminder GG!

[geargrinder]

Reminds me that I once made a plywood sunroof to replace a glass one that a drunk 'friend' kicked out in a blackout binge (he somehow fell over out of sheer stupid drunkness in the back seat, fell into the back footwell, got all jammed up and started lashign out with his feet and put one through the sunroof). I was totally in a jam, the glass was shattered, I was a broke post-student with very low cash reserves, and had to drive the car hours back home the next day, so... a piece of luan plywood got fabricated to fit into the rubber gasket for the glass, and riveted to the frame for the glass roof. What a ghetto setup, I think I had to drive it that way for a couple years IIRC. Def one of those 'hack emergency workarounds' that you kinda forget about and then suddenly its 2 years later and you realize what a hacker ghetto piece of crap you're driving. Man that car was a POS when I was done with it.

[tptrsn]

Lol, luan it is -- you're a damn genius!

Alright, I'm kidding about using luan on my car.... I think.

I wish I would have been able to fix my sunroof properly back when I tried it, but it absolutely beat me. And for that matter judging from your results and others on here, I'd probably have had to fix it again by now anyway.

[philly98540]

Lol

[computiNATEor]

Nate - FYI for your google reference, the normal terminology is 'sunroof cassette'. I've not done it, but the big thing is you have to drop the headliner. Then just various steps of unbolting.

Here's one example but if you google E39 sunroof cassette there's a lotta pix and threads on it...
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...unroof-removal

Ah, yeah, cassette. Close enough I've already done the repair before; just squeezing the headliner out of the car is incredibly tight, too. I left the cassette resting on the front and rear seat headrests and worked around it without trying to remove it. That DIY recommends removing the seats; removing the seats makes the headliner easier to remove, too, as the B-pillar trim is much more difficult to reattach with the seats in thew way.

[geargrinder]

I really wish this forum would condone profanity. I need it today.

Well this went disasterously, ruining my day and weekend and probably week.

At first, long long time ago this morning... I thought it was going great and just going to take no time at all to button up. First reassembly with new sliders went great, everything seemed loose and slidey and ready to button up, first attempt to reinstall glass (OK I did it like 3 other times early in the week but first attempt THIS weekend...) went super smooth...

Basically has now turned into repair hell.

Glass has been in and out twice already today, and is now out for 3rd and final (more on that in a sec) time.

Had just continuing problems with getting the mechanism to go all the way back w/ glass in (hand turning w/ allen socket). Thought it was this, thought it was that, got everything as good as I could but still would bind up and just act like crap. In the end the 'rails that hold the bellows' (BMW stupidly 'support for rubber boot' - #14 in the REALOEM pic...) were just binding up... after some inspection, I never could 100% nail down the defect, but mine are bent up a bit laterally in a way that was going to be nearly impossible to flatten. They seemed like they were sliding all fine and all was hunky dory but then you'd move the mechanism back or forth and something would bind up again. The little front slider blocks on those were kinda mangled as well. Maybe those were contributors. But they just really didn't want to cooperate and kept jamming here and there, and since they have to interslide with 3 other components in the roof its a cluster fork trying to figure out what hangs them up.

So basically I decided, OK screw it, those are optional, I can put this thing back together without them and screw the stupid bellows thing, I can always fix that at some later date... Get this stupid hassle behind me... Well.. as I was moving the mechanism by hand, something funny happened inside and I get a few funny clicky sounds inside, and voila. Suddenly only one control rail is appearing at the front of the sunroof hole when I try to put it in "closed" position. The other one is just sitting down back inside the roof - not sure if it's come off the cable or some other plastic has broken or what.

So. I guess the moutherF$(*%(*&#%(*&(#*%#@#((@(@ing headliner is gonna come out along with the cassette. See what's what. Extremely likely a junkyard sunroof pull might be in my future.

Turns out I am pretty sure somebody has worked on this sunroof before. I've always had the sunshade slide / interlock be a bit sticky, and indeed it's that part of the mechanism that kept foiling me. Then I notice the sunroof glass itself has a funny number written in one corner of it like it came from a junkyard. Huh. As I start the headliner-drop process, indeed also it there's evidence of a lot of the stuff being 'touched' since the factory, so maybe this car has seen this adventure before. The stupid @(#$(&&@#@)(8 bellows slider boot things definitely are deformed so maybe somebody else wrestled with this PITA in the past.

Well. Off to garage to finish dropping a headliner. So far have resisted the very strong urge to hurl the glass roof into the street, hopefully I can maintain at least this level of composure for the rest of the afternoon.

[tptrsn]

Good luck my man! You're a way better man than me for not resorting to luan already on this one.

(does sound a lot like my "lost week I'll never get back" spent fighting with my e39 sunroof though..)

[philly98540]

Cant help it lol over here! Godspeed JC! Sounds like a real fun time. A couple coats of spar varnish and luan looks like mahogany!

I'm never touching my sunroof button.