Squeaky trim

[Chris H]

My trim has started squeaking quite badly - the offending part is where the cover at either end of the dog net sits on top of the trim under the rear windows. When the car flexes slightly, the two rub against each other. Any bright ideas for a cure?! I could just try rubbing a touch of GT40 in the gap to smooth the 2 surfaces.

[physco johnson]

I had exactly the same problem. Where the dog net assembly sits on the plastic trim that runns behind yoour seats turned out to be the problem, as some of the retaining platic studs were broke and screws were loose.

Solution was to remove dog net - very easy with 1 nut at each end under the black plastic covers. I then filled the gap between the trim along the top with a small amount of expanding foam (be carefull not to spary too much) then re installed the dog net. Now have a very quite car!

[Greenbat]

http://www.tarr.com/personal/mcoupe.htm

Scroll down to halfway down the page.

Backs up what 'physco johnson' wrote

Greenbat

[Chris H]

Thanks guys. Will try Jeff's idea and stick some draught insulator strips under the unit.

I love this forum :D

[Chris H]

This is annoying the hell out of me. ARRRGGHHH! :evil:

I've taken off the dog net and placed draught excluder strips in the gap along the length of the plastic that sits beneath the dog net assembly. No joy. I then drove around without the dog net assembly bolted on and the squeaking was still there, so obviously nothing to do with the two rubbing together. I've loosened and/or tightened nuts and screws everywhere to find something that stops it but to no avail. It's extremely localised on the passenger side from what seems to be under the main trim where the 2 bolts are for the dog net assembly.

I've now had enough and am taking it to a local garage for them to find out where its coming from. :oops:

[Ivo]

what cured 70% of my squeeking was to put some foam around the 2 "pins" of the rollcover.

When you close the cover, you have two pins (one on both sides) that get caught in the trim on each side of the boot. Put some foam around that pins and you should have a lot less squekking.

Sorry for my poor description, I hope you understand what I mean :oops:

[Chris H]

Thanks Ivo. I've already tried putting some felt pads around the two pins for the rollcover to sit on instead of against the trim but it's not the rollcover that's the problem.

[exdos]

If you've got the HK soundsystem in the back, could the noise be coming from any of the plastic enclosures :?:

[c_w]

I get no squeaks but I do have a rattle, kind of like something loose that is shifting about when you turn one way then to the other. Couldn't find anything loose under the dog next/blind but its definitely just behind my seat somewhere!

I did have a squeak from the plastic boot cover; make sure its not loose (there are 2 screws neear the middle, the rest is held on with plastic poppers).

[Chris H]

Right, having taken off pretty much most of the trim and bounced the car whilst kneeling inside the boot (the neighbours were looking a bit :? ) I'm 99% certain its nothing to do with the trim but with the suspension. Is a likely suspect the rear top mount as I think that sits underneath the trim by the bulkhead? You can certainly hear the squeaking from outside when pushing the car up/down or sideways, but its louder inside. The rear mounts were replaced only a couple of months ago so seems a bit strange.

Don't think it's a job for me, but should hopefully be covered under EW.

[AJL]

I have this problem on mine driving me insane! When i get the car back from the dealers will have to try the velcro etc. Dealers wanted £190 to investigate and refit the trim! :shock:

EDIT: All fixed now thanks to a bit of foam tape :D

[Rags]

Chris,

was this what started the problems?

RAgs

[Chris H]

Rahul,

Was going to get round to posting about this and your question has prompted me. A really long story which harps back to a little spin I had last September on a wet and greasy roundabout. Ended up doing a 180 and backing over a kerb. Punctured and badly scuffed the left rear tyre and also had some minor damage to the control arms to the rear suspension (I think). Anyway, called up BMW Emergency Services and the car was picked up and fixed in a week or so by the local dealership and paid for under insurance, no problems there.

As bad luck would have it, BMW and the independent engineers from Elephant failed to spot a hairline crack in the body panel under the left rear top mount from the impact (probably understandably so). This grew worse over time and eventually cracked properly and in the process snapping my rear damper. This now links to my other thread:

http://www.z3mcoupe.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=4347&highlight=

So, whilst I was worrying about squeaky trim, the problem was actually the crack in my rear arch body panel. What resulted from when the damper snapped is a long and tedious story. As the above thread suggests, my first thought when the damper snapped was that it was a failure of the body work/suspension and this was clearly a BMW issue. The car was taken to my local dealership for inspection which just took forever as they had to bring down the regional technical manager for his assessment. Meanwhile, I was writing letters and having phone calls with BMW UK about this stating that they should be picking up the tab for repair. It wasn't until the BMW engineer confirmed that the damage had been caused by a previous knock to the left rear that I put 2 + 2 together and realised this was linked to my previous off-road experience. After hounding BMW UK for the last month, my focus then shifted to the dealership who undertook the original repairs, claiming that they should have spotted it in the first place and need to now rectify it at their cost. Clearly they weren't happy with this and suggested that I take it up with my insurance company and treat it as part of the original claim. I then started corresponding with Elephant who, after a few letters and e-mails, agreed to send out an engineer to assess my car. By this point, it had all been repaired (and paid for by me) so there wasn't much for them to assess.

I then went through a torrid 4 weeks of e-mailing Elephant to get them to understand what had happened and to pay for my repair costs. At one point I got so irate with them I threatened to take them to the Financial Ombudsman and even had to quote clauses from their policy booklet back at them. At that point they sent me a copy of the engineers report that stated the original repair work had not been up to scratch and the additional costs should be claimed against that dealership. Elephant said that they couldn't pursue the dealership because they weren't an 'Approved Garage' and it was up to me. Clearly, not happy that the engineers had come to the wrong conclusion, I had to get hold of them, eventually speaking to the boss to explain what had happened. He was sympathetic, spoke to the dealership and between them wrote letters back to Elephant stating that the additional repair work should have been carried out at the time and would have been part of the original claim.

Only last week (5 months from when the damper snapped) did I finally receive money from Elephant in full reimbursement for the additional costs of repair - which was replacing the whole of the left rear arch panel. I think there was something in the region of 2 letters and 4 phone calls to BMW UK, 6 phone calls and 2 faxes to the original BMW dealership, 4 phone calls to the dealership who carried out the additional repairs, 5 phone calls and 1 fax to the independent engineers, and 9 e-mails, 2 letters and a fax to Elephant before I received reimbursement :shock: . A lot of perseverence but it paid off in the end.

So, I hope that anyonelse with squeaky trim hasn't got the same problem that I did! My car has obviously now been repaired back to original state by BMW dealerships and is absolutley fine and dandy. The worst thing about it was losing the use of it for Le Mans and for most of the summer. Still, I felt like I had just bought it again when I picked it up from the dealers. :D

Cheers,

Chris.

[chippy]

The worst thing about it was losing the use of it for Le Mans and for most of the summer. Still, I felt like I had just bought it again when I picked it up from the dealers.

When i met you at the Eurotunnel when i was on my way to Le Mans last year you did seem rather 'cheesed off' with the whole business :cry:

Glad you got it all sorted in the end Chris :lol:

Tony