tonyb635

Thought I would change out my sun roof seal and sorta document the process so thats its kinda in one place. I started looking to see what it was all about and it really took a lot of time to find everything. You can do this a number of different ways and once the seal is replaced most likely you will need to reset the sun roof sensors since the roof will probably not close properly. Anyways, here it goes...

1. I placed a piece of blue painters tape and marked a line where the current seal started. It starts in the center but if I had eyed it and I was off, this would drive me crazy!

2. Remove the seal by starting at the seal joint and pulling it away.

3. Remove the residual glue from the body left by the seal. I found the easiest way was to use my finger to roll it. You wouldn't want to do too many of these or you might have a couple blisters on your finger! If this is not working well for you, then you can try some goo-off or something similar to soften the old glue. The problem I found with using a chemical was that it seemed to be a little messy...
4. Take the new seal out of the bag and lay it somewhere where it can get nice and warm. I placed mine out on the driveway in the sun. If you are doing this in the winter, you might want to put your car is in a heated garage where the temperature is not too cold. Everything will properly bond and just flow better if its warm. There is a recommend temp. and you can find this in the BMW procedure. Sorry, I don't have it.

5. Peel back part of the protective tape and with the lip or hooked edge towards the top painted surface, adhere the seal to the body using the mark on the take as a starting point.

6. Work the seal against the body in a semi relax state. In other words, you don't need to pull the seal taut. This could cause it to pull away later. Only pull away as much of the protective tape as you need and be careful not to let the adhesive come in contact with anything that could contaminate it.
7. When you come to the end you want to cut the seal slightly longer than you need. I cut mine ~ 3 mm. This will also prevent the seal from pulling away and leaving a gap.

8. Apply firm pressure over the entire seal surface.

9. Test your sun roof operation. Mine worked ok until I tilted it and it would not come back into position unless I helped it.


Now your ready to reset the sun roof sensors.

10. Start with the sun roof in the closed position. Push the button in to tilt up the roof and hold. This will take ~ 20 seconds or so and you will see your sun roof tilt up and down.
11. Press and hold the same button again for ~ 20 seconds and the glass will close and reset the sensors. Below is a great video I found so take a look at it.

https://wiki.bentleypublishers.com/d...61+%28video%29

tonyb635

Amazing how quite the car is now with the new seal!

Lambda28

Nice job and thanks for sharing Tony!

NoQuarter

Good post Tony. Too bad it won't stop the "We should sue BMW because our sunroof seal leaks" posts!

tonyb635

Oh how true. Luckily mine wasn't leaking, but was a bit noisy.

infin8

Nice post. I definitely need to do this, mine is very noisy. It sounds like a wind tunnel in the cabin unless I have the moonroof manual cover all the way closed. Even then I can still hear wind coming in just not as loud. Is this what you were experiencing? Also, how much did the replacement seal cost you? Where did you get it? Thanks in advance for any info. you can give me.

tonyb635

Exactly, mine was noisy and you could hear a huge difference just by sliding the shade closed, but still hear it. With the new seal the shade can be open or closed and it really quiet and actually hard to detect which position it's in unless you look. You can get teh seal from BMW and I think its around 35.00

infin8

Thanks. Did you order it online or go to the dealer?

tonyb635

The Dealer should have it, but you might be able to find an OEM seal same part number on line too. I ordered mine from work.
http://bmw-parts.tomkinsonbmwparts.c...icleid=1440192
http://bmwfans.info/parts/catalog/54107245551/
http://www.worldimpex.com/parts/bmw-...l_1600657.html
http://www.bmwpartsweb.com/Part-Numb..._E095124A.aspx

roskinc

excellent write up! i ordered the seals too because im going to wrap my roof in vinyl and figured, kill two birds with 1 stone. replace the seal and also make it easier to apply the vinyl dont have to worry about tucking it in the seal.