Sunshade under the sunroof problem
08-09-2017, 12:50 AM
#11
Members
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Las Vegas, USA
Posts: 129
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
My Ride: 2007 530xiT: CPO purchase in 2008, used by a BMW exec previously, and like-new when I got it. Compared to my other cars, at first I thought it felt heavy and steering was too heavy. Now, I really enjoy driving it in town and on the freeway. On my
Well, it was a nice try. Bottom line is I could not completely make the repair. There was a small success though. I'll document the repair here in the hopes that the information has some residual benefit to others trying a similar repair.
Removing the forward glass is simple. Tilt the glass up using the sunroof controls. The left and right edges of the glass have a rubber accordion like seal which is connected to the sunroof cartridge. Use your fingers and push the bottom of the seal toward the center of the car to release the seal from the cartridge. Here's a picture of the seal lifted up exposing one of 6 screws holding the glass to the cartridge. There are six T-25 Torx screws, 3 on each side, located at the very front of the glass, in the center, and near the rear of glass:
Carefully remove the glass up away from the cartridge. Using the sunroof controls, slide the sunshade all the way forward, i.e., closed. Now the top side of the sunshade is exposed and looks like this:
I was trying to fix the right (passenger) side of the sunshade where it had separated between the front and rear sunshade sections. There was a light gap between the 2 sections and parts were rattling. Any little bump in the road and it would rattle. Here's the left side, the good side, for comparison. The purpose of the mesh bar, which spans from the left side to the right side, appears to be to mash the front and rear sunshades together and seal out light:
Here's the right side, kind of in the condition I found it. The mesh bar is connected to the sunroof mechanism by a plastic carrier piece on either end of the bar. Note that the carrier piece here is sitting on top of the rail and is therefore raised and can no longer mash the front and rear sunshades together on the right side. Which was the problem I was trying to fix:
So the answer appeared obvious. Just put that carrier piece back into the rail. Except I couldn't. There are flanges at the foot of the carrier piece. When the carrier piece is in the rail correctly, the flanges prevent the carrier piece from popping out of the track. Now that my piece was out of the rail, the flanges were now preventing the carrier piece from going back into the rail. Could I have just pounded the carrier piece in? No. The rail is sturdy steel and the carrier piece is plastic. As it was, the carrier piece was already partially fractured. Any additional stress would have completely broken the carrier. Here's an up-close look at the carrier:
So how did that carrier piece get out? Don't know. Really great mystery. Thinking that maybe there was an opening further back in the rail, I started to remove the rear sunroof glass. Four T-25 screws hold that glass in. I got the glass loose put could not remove it from the cartridge. Even though it was loose, it was like there was still a connector holding it to the car. Not wishing to cause additional damage, I gave up and started to put the glass back together.
One of the tedious parts of removing the sunroof glass is realigning the glass during re-installation. You have forward and backward as well as upward and downward alignments to make. When you unscrew both front and back glass, you have more than double the work to realign. If the glass is mis-aligned, you have the additional problem with the sunroof control refusing to close the glass from vent position. I spent a couple of hours getting the glass realigned. In the process of realigning glass, I had to move the sunshade back and forth a few times to test alignment and closing ability. During one movement, the rear sunshade separated from the front. In order to find out what went wrong, I would have to disassemble the glass and start over. At this point, I had invested over 5 hours of work. No way was I going to take it apart again. Time to limp home with tail between legs, When all is said and done, the front sunshade is still controlled by the sunroof control. The rear sunshade is now detached and independent and is manually operated.
Was there any good news? Actually yes. With my new understanding of the mesh bar carrier part, I reconnected the front sunroof window accordion seal and carefully closed the front sunshade an inch at a time and with my fingers pushed the carrier part under the accordion seal rail. Even though the carrier is not fully in the track, it's nice and snug and I no longer have the sunshade rattle that really annoyed me. And the light gap is noticeably smaller. And, when sitting in the interior, it's not readily apparent there's a sunroof issue. Cosmetically, it looks fine, not great, but good. BUT, if you want rattle free, you can't use the sunroof because opening the sunshade moves the carrier past the end of the accordion seal rail and the carrier will be running loose. Since I rarely use the sunroof anyway, this isn't a problem. Here's a picture of the carrier part and mesh bar under the accordion seal rail and before I manually pushed it forward over the front sunshade. You can see the end of the accordion seal rail just to the right of the mesh bar, Also note my manual rear sunshade is in the open position:
OK, that's it. Hope this is helpful and of interest to someone. It was an interesting experience and helps to confirm to me there's some crazy and scary engineering in that sunroof.
BostonJon, seems to me my sunroof problem is now the same as yours. If so, pretty sure you can just reach back into the headliner and just pull your rear sunshade out. Don't even need to remove the glass.
Removing the forward glass is simple. Tilt the glass up using the sunroof controls. The left and right edges of the glass have a rubber accordion like seal which is connected to the sunroof cartridge. Use your fingers and push the bottom of the seal toward the center of the car to release the seal from the cartridge. Here's a picture of the seal lifted up exposing one of 6 screws holding the glass to the cartridge. There are six T-25 Torx screws, 3 on each side, located at the very front of the glass, in the center, and near the rear of glass:
Carefully remove the glass up away from the cartridge. Using the sunroof controls, slide the sunshade all the way forward, i.e., closed. Now the top side of the sunshade is exposed and looks like this:
I was trying to fix the right (passenger) side of the sunshade where it had separated between the front and rear sunshade sections. There was a light gap between the 2 sections and parts were rattling. Any little bump in the road and it would rattle. Here's the left side, the good side, for comparison. The purpose of the mesh bar, which spans from the left side to the right side, appears to be to mash the front and rear sunshades together and seal out light:
Here's the right side, kind of in the condition I found it. The mesh bar is connected to the sunroof mechanism by a plastic carrier piece on either end of the bar. Note that the carrier piece here is sitting on top of the rail and is therefore raised and can no longer mash the front and rear sunshades together on the right side. Which was the problem I was trying to fix:
So the answer appeared obvious. Just put that carrier piece back into the rail. Except I couldn't. There are flanges at the foot of the carrier piece. When the carrier piece is in the rail correctly, the flanges prevent the carrier piece from popping out of the track. Now that my piece was out of the rail, the flanges were now preventing the carrier piece from going back into the rail. Could I have just pounded the carrier piece in? No. The rail is sturdy steel and the carrier piece is plastic. As it was, the carrier piece was already partially fractured. Any additional stress would have completely broken the carrier. Here's an up-close look at the carrier:
So how did that carrier piece get out? Don't know. Really great mystery. Thinking that maybe there was an opening further back in the rail, I started to remove the rear sunroof glass. Four T-25 screws hold that glass in. I got the glass loose put could not remove it from the cartridge. Even though it was loose, it was like there was still a connector holding it to the car. Not wishing to cause additional damage, I gave up and started to put the glass back together.
One of the tedious parts of removing the sunroof glass is realigning the glass during re-installation. You have forward and backward as well as upward and downward alignments to make. When you unscrew both front and back glass, you have more than double the work to realign. If the glass is mis-aligned, you have the additional problem with the sunroof control refusing to close the glass from vent position. I spent a couple of hours getting the glass realigned. In the process of realigning glass, I had to move the sunshade back and forth a few times to test alignment and closing ability. During one movement, the rear sunshade separated from the front. In order to find out what went wrong, I would have to disassemble the glass and start over. At this point, I had invested over 5 hours of work. No way was I going to take it apart again. Time to limp home with tail between legs, When all is said and done, the front sunshade is still controlled by the sunroof control. The rear sunshade is now detached and independent and is manually operated.
Was there any good news? Actually yes. With my new understanding of the mesh bar carrier part, I reconnected the front sunroof window accordion seal and carefully closed the front sunshade an inch at a time and with my fingers pushed the carrier part under the accordion seal rail. Even though the carrier is not fully in the track, it's nice and snug and I no longer have the sunshade rattle that really annoyed me. And the light gap is noticeably smaller. And, when sitting in the interior, it's not readily apparent there's a sunroof issue. Cosmetically, it looks fine, not great, but good. BUT, if you want rattle free, you can't use the sunroof because opening the sunshade moves the carrier past the end of the accordion seal rail and the carrier will be running loose. Since I rarely use the sunroof anyway, this isn't a problem. Here's a picture of the carrier part and mesh bar under the accordion seal rail and before I manually pushed it forward over the front sunshade. You can see the end of the accordion seal rail just to the right of the mesh bar, Also note my manual rear sunshade is in the open position:
OK, that's it. Hope this is helpful and of interest to someone. It was an interesting experience and helps to confirm to me there's some crazy and scary engineering in that sunroof.
BostonJon, seems to me my sunroof problem is now the same as yours. If so, pretty sure you can just reach back into the headliner and just pull your rear sunshade out. Don't even need to remove the glass.
Last edited by yeewiz; 08-09-2017 at 08:20 AM. Reason: typo
08-09-2017, 08:54 AM
#12
New Members
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 367
Likes: 0
Received 4 Likes
on
4 Posts
My Ride: BMW 530xiT (E61)
Model Year: 2007
Well, it was a nice try. Bottom line is I could not completely make the repair. There was a small success though. I'll document the repair here in the hopes that the information has some residual benefit to others trying a similar repair.
Removing the forward glass is simple. Tilt the glass up using the sunroof controls. The left and right edges of the glass have a rubber accordion like seal which is connected to the sunroof cartridge. Use your fingers and push the bottom of the seal toward the center of the car to release the seal from the cartridge. Here's a picture of the seal lifted up exposing one of 6 screws holding the glass to the cartridge. There are six T-25 Torx screws, 3 on each side, located at the very front of the glass, in the center, and near the rear of glass:
Carefully remove the glass up away from the cartridge. Using the sunroof controls, slide the sunshade all the way forward, i.e., closed. Now the top side of the sunshade is exposed and looks like this:
I was trying to fix the right (passenger) side of the sunshade where it had separated between the front and rear sunshade sections. There was a light gap between the 2 sections and parts were rattling. Any little bump in the road and it would rattle. Here's the left side, the good side, for comparison. The purpose of the mesh bar, which spans from the left side to the right side, appears to be to mash the front and rear sunshades together and seal out light:
Here's the right side, kind of in the condition I found it. The mesh bar is connected to the sunroof mechanism by a plastic carrier piece on either end of the bar. Note that the carrier piece here is sitting on top of the rail and is therefore raised and can no longer mash the front and rear sunshades together on the right side. Which was the problem I was trying to fix:
So the answer appeared obvious. Just put that carrier piece back into the rail. Except I couldn't. There are flanges at the foot of the carrier piece. When the carrier piece is in the rail correctly, the flanges prevent the carrier piece from popping out of the track. Now that my piece was out of the rail, the flanges were now preventing the carrier piece from going back into the rail. Could I have just pounded the carrier piece in? No. The rail is sturdy steel and the carrier piece is plastic. As it was, the carrier piece was already partially fractured. Any additional stress would have completely broken the carrier. Here's an up-close look at the carrier:
So how did that carrier piece get out? Don't know. Really great mystery. Thinking that maybe there was an opening further back in the rail, I started to remove the rear sunroof glass. Four T-25 screws hold that glass in. I got the glass loose put could not remove it from the cartridge. Even though it was loose, it was like there was still a connector holding it to the car. Not wishing to cause additional damage, I gave up and started to put the glass back together.
One of the tedious parts of removing the sunroof glass is realigning the glass during re-installation. You have forward and backward as well as upward and downward alignments to make. When you unscrew both front and back glass, you have more than double the work to realign. If the glass is mis-aligned, you have the additional problem with the sunroof control refusing to close the glass from vent position. I spent a couple of hours getting the glass realigned. In the process of realigning glass, I had to move the sunshade back and forth a few times to test alignment and closing ability. During one movement, the rear sunshade separated from the front. In order to find out what went wrong, I would have to disassemble the glass and start over. At this point, I had invested over 5 hours of work. No way was I going to take it apart again. Time to limp home with tail between legs, When all is said and done, the front sunshade is still controlled by the sunroof control. The rear sunshade is now detached and independent and is manually operated.
Was there any good news? Actually yes. With my new understanding of the mesh bar carrier part, I reconnected the front sunroof window accordion seal and carefully closed the front sunshade an inch at a time and with my fingers pushed the carrier part under the accordion seal rail. Even though the carrier is not fully in the track, it's nice and snug and I no longer have the sunshade rattle that really annoyed me. And the light gap is noticeably smaller. And, when sitting in the interior, it's not readily apparent there's a sunroof issue. Cosmetically, it looks fine, not great, but good. BUT, if you want rattle free, you can't use the sunroof because opening the sunshade moves the carrier past the end of the accordion seal rail and the carrier will be running loose. Since I rarely use the sunroof anyway, this isn't a problem. Here's a picture of the carrier part and mesh bar under the accordion seal rail and before I manually pushed it forward over the front sunshade. You can see the end of the accordion seal rail just to the right of the mesh bar, Also note my manual rear sunshade is in the open position:
OK, that's it. Hope this is helpful and of interest to someone. It was an interesting experience and helps to confirm to me there's some crazy and scary engineering in that sunroof.
BostonJon, seems to me my sunroof problem is now the same as yours. If so, pretty sure you can just reach back into the headliner and just pull your rear sunshade out. Don't even need to remove the glass.
Removing the forward glass is simple. Tilt the glass up using the sunroof controls. The left and right edges of the glass have a rubber accordion like seal which is connected to the sunroof cartridge. Use your fingers and push the bottom of the seal toward the center of the car to release the seal from the cartridge. Here's a picture of the seal lifted up exposing one of 6 screws holding the glass to the cartridge. There are six T-25 Torx screws, 3 on each side, located at the very front of the glass, in the center, and near the rear of glass:
Carefully remove the glass up away from the cartridge. Using the sunroof controls, slide the sunshade all the way forward, i.e., closed. Now the top side of the sunshade is exposed and looks like this:
I was trying to fix the right (passenger) side of the sunshade where it had separated between the front and rear sunshade sections. There was a light gap between the 2 sections and parts were rattling. Any little bump in the road and it would rattle. Here's the left side, the good side, for comparison. The purpose of the mesh bar, which spans from the left side to the right side, appears to be to mash the front and rear sunshades together and seal out light:
Here's the right side, kind of in the condition I found it. The mesh bar is connected to the sunroof mechanism by a plastic carrier piece on either end of the bar. Note that the carrier piece here is sitting on top of the rail and is therefore raised and can no longer mash the front and rear sunshades together on the right side. Which was the problem I was trying to fix:
So the answer appeared obvious. Just put that carrier piece back into the rail. Except I couldn't. There are flanges at the foot of the carrier piece. When the carrier piece is in the rail correctly, the flanges prevent the carrier piece from popping out of the track. Now that my piece was out of the rail, the flanges were now preventing the carrier piece from going back into the rail. Could I have just pounded the carrier piece in? No. The rail is sturdy steel and the carrier piece is plastic. As it was, the carrier piece was already partially fractured. Any additional stress would have completely broken the carrier. Here's an up-close look at the carrier:
So how did that carrier piece get out? Don't know. Really great mystery. Thinking that maybe there was an opening further back in the rail, I started to remove the rear sunroof glass. Four T-25 screws hold that glass in. I got the glass loose put could not remove it from the cartridge. Even though it was loose, it was like there was still a connector holding it to the car. Not wishing to cause additional damage, I gave up and started to put the glass back together.
One of the tedious parts of removing the sunroof glass is realigning the glass during re-installation. You have forward and backward as well as upward and downward alignments to make. When you unscrew both front and back glass, you have more than double the work to realign. If the glass is mis-aligned, you have the additional problem with the sunroof control refusing to close the glass from vent position. I spent a couple of hours getting the glass realigned. In the process of realigning glass, I had to move the sunshade back and forth a few times to test alignment and closing ability. During one movement, the rear sunshade separated from the front. In order to find out what went wrong, I would have to disassemble the glass and start over. At this point, I had invested over 5 hours of work. No way was I going to take it apart again. Time to limp home with tail between legs, When all is said and done, the front sunshade is still controlled by the sunroof control. The rear sunshade is now detached and independent and is manually operated.
Was there any good news? Actually yes. With my new understanding of the mesh bar carrier part, I reconnected the front sunroof window accordion seal and carefully closed the front sunshade an inch at a time and with my fingers pushed the carrier part under the accordion seal rail. Even though the carrier is not fully in the track, it's nice and snug and I no longer have the sunshade rattle that really annoyed me. And the light gap is noticeably smaller. And, when sitting in the interior, it's not readily apparent there's a sunroof issue. Cosmetically, it looks fine, not great, but good. BUT, if you want rattle free, you can't use the sunroof because opening the sunshade moves the carrier past the end of the accordion seal rail and the carrier will be running loose. Since I rarely use the sunroof anyway, this isn't a problem. Here's a picture of the carrier part and mesh bar under the accordion seal rail and before I manually pushed it forward over the front sunshade. You can see the end of the accordion seal rail just to the right of the mesh bar, Also note my manual rear sunshade is in the open position:
OK, that's it. Hope this is helpful and of interest to someone. It was an interesting experience and helps to confirm to me there's some crazy and scary engineering in that sunroof.
BostonJon, seems to me my sunroof problem is now the same as yours. If so, pretty sure you can just reach back into the headliner and just pull your rear sunshade out. Don't even need to remove the glass.
there is a process to remove the rear glass. I can look it up for you if you're interested and send it to you.
when you took out the torx screws for the glass, did you mark them with any sort of paint so you could reinstall them in (roughly) the same position they were removed?
08-09-2017, 10:16 AM
#13
Members
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Las Vegas, USA
Posts: 129
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
My Ride: 2007 530xiT: CPO purchase in 2008, used by a BMW exec previously, and like-new when I got it. Compared to my other cars, at first I thought it felt heavy and steering was too heavy. Now, I really enjoy driving it in town and on the freeway. On my
BTW, here's a picture of the interior after the "repair". Note the gap at the rear of the front sunshade. That gap is because the carrier part is sitting on top of the slot:
Also, are you familiar with this part? My granddaughter says it fell from the sunroof after she pushed the sunshade. In all my mucking around, I can't figure out where it could have possibly come from:
Last edited by yeewiz; 08-09-2017 at 07:20 PM. Reason: typo
08-10-2017, 05:57 PM
#15
Members
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Las Vegas, USA
Posts: 129
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
My Ride: 2007 530xiT: CPO purchase in 2008, used by a BMW exec previously, and like-new when I got it. Compared to my other cars, at first I thought it felt heavy and steering was too heavy. Now, I really enjoy driving it in town and on the freeway. On my
Thanks for the info. Thinking back, sliding it back was probably what I didn't do, I think I lifted up and forward and every way but backwards. Oh well too late now.
Here's a picture of the front screw of the rear sunroof glass you may enjoy. Needed to freshen up my Visio skills. Also discovered a "benefit" of my failed repair: Rear seat passengers have their own sunroof and control.
Did you ever locate and pull out your rear sunshade? Is your carrier piece out of the track?
Re the other unposted pictures, I think I'll post them here in this thread so that they're available as a resource within this forum. I think it's the right place to be.
p.s.: The absence of the sunshade rattle is simply wonderful. I wasn't happy having the rear sunshade disconnected. But losing the rear sunshade was a worthwhile trade for the blessed silence.
Here's a picture of the front screw of the rear sunroof glass you may enjoy. Needed to freshen up my Visio skills. Also discovered a "benefit" of my failed repair: Rear seat passengers have their own sunroof and control.
Did you ever locate and pull out your rear sunshade? Is your carrier piece out of the track?
Re the other unposted pictures, I think I'll post them here in this thread so that they're available as a resource within this forum. I think it's the right place to be.
p.s.: The absence of the sunshade rattle is simply wonderful. I wasn't happy having the rear sunshade disconnected. But losing the rear sunshade was a worthwhile trade for the blessed silence.
08-12-2017, 01:36 PM
#16
Members
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Las Vegas, USA
Posts: 129
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
My Ride: 2007 530xiT: CPO purchase in 2008, used by a BMW exec previously, and like-new when I got it. Compared to my other cars, at first I thought it felt heavy and steering was too heavy. Now, I really enjoy driving it in town and on the freeway. On my
Panoramic Sunroof Deconstruct
Just found this. Filled in some gaps for me. Was pretty instructive for me and maybe useful to people. Also has some nice youtube links within. Apologies if this is old news:
https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...construct.html
https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...construct.html