2007 Z4 convertible soft top not closing

[macsonners]

Have 2007 z4 with soft top.
I was able to open the soft top but when push to close the motor running but soft top will not move up.
If I manually move the soft top to almost midway while pushing the close button it will close without any problem.
I assume that nothing wrong with the motor.
Hope that that is not to costly to fix.
Thanks

[JAS1169]

Hey, given your facts, you most likely have a hinge lifters which is failing. The car has a hinge lifter on either side and these are the things which bring the top up/down. These hinge lifter's have hydraulic line's at the top and bottom and these hydraulic lines are attached to the pump/motor which you hear running. Inside the hinge lifters are pistons with rubber seals and the hydraulic fluid is pushed against these pistons/seals and either moves the top up or down.

Your problem is that one of the rubber seals is failing on the piston of one of your hinge lifters. Instead of firmly moving the piston, the failing rubber seal is simply allowing hydraulic fluid to push thru it. Generally, when a seal in the hinge lifter is failing the top will come down with no problems(gravity helps). However, due to the loss of lifting ability due to the bad seal, bring the top up from the fully down position will be almost impossible because it can no longer lift the dead weight of the top. When the top is manually moved midway and then the system is engaged it will generally close. This is because a lot of the dead weight need to lift the roof is gone at the midway point.

[macsonners]

thank you very much.
Appreciate for the information. is it something that I can buy and fix it.

[JAS1169]

Hey, when I initially answered your first post, I purposely did not explain either the repair or the cost involved because it was so near Christmas.

The repair requires the top to be removed from the car. (There are a number of D/I/Y video's on you tube on removing the roof on a e85 z4) The hinge lifters are sort of built into the roof. Once the roof is removed you'll need to remove the hinge lifters from the top (the only youtube video I've found on this was in Spanish...however, you can watch it and see what need's to be done).

Ok, do not buy new BMW hinge lifters. I think they want in excess of $600.00 each for them. This business will rebuild your old hinge lifters for $450.00 for both sides:
BMW Convertible Top Hydraulic Cylinder Rebuild/Upgrade Service (tophydraulics.com)

There is another business in Florida which also rebuilds convertible hinge lifters. I'd expect their costs would be about the same.

Google hinge lifter bmw z4

I've no idea how handy you are, after looking at the youtube video's on z4 convertible tops you'll know if you can do this or not!

Although a dealer can do this repair, I'd expect it to be really costly. I've zero idea what a third party garage in Texas would charge for this repair.

However, regardless if you, the dealer or a third party garage does the repair you should have BOTH HINGE LIFTERS REBUILT.


Your other option is to do nothing. Keep using the manual override.

[jclausen]

Until is diagnosed properly you really don’t know what’s bad, lots of stuff going on in the convertible system