The top is stuck closed on my wife's 05 cooper S convertable. It only starts to open on the passenger side.

I searched it here and I heard someone had to have their "mechanical cartridge" replaced.

I was curious if anyone knew what this costs?

Thanks,

 

Are you still under warranty?

 

same thing happened to my top. the dealer replaced whole front portion of the top from the motor cross-member to the latches. this was done under warrenty. the part alone will be fairly expensive then add in labor.

 

Nope not under warranty.

 

Since mileage will not cause wear and tear on a top, and your car is well within the 4 year warranty limit, I would argue with the dealer that they should give you a waiver on the mileage limit on this particular failure.

The MINI is the first vehicle that I have had where the reliability is so low that I was tempted into buying an extended warranty. The $1800 cost has already been paid for almost 2 times over and I still have 3 years left on the warranty.

 

I would definitely push the dealer to fix it FREE.... There have been issues in the past with the Cabrio tops that the dealers are WELL aware of....

Donna

 

I just had this fixed at MOTowson. I've been having problems with my top not opening - sunroof okay, top doesn't budge. But I read in the manual that sometimes the top doesn't open when it's too hot outside, so I chalked it up to that but it does seem to have a mind of it's own...

But Tuesday night the sunroof pulled back all the way on the drivers side and only about 3 inches on the passenger side! Then when I closed it, the driver's side closed and the passenger side was stuck open! Thank goodness it wasn't raining.

So it went to Towson on Wednesday morning. They took me right away and sent me off in a mini loaner. (They were very busy but had lots of very efficient staff.) They had to keep it overnight since they didn't know what was wrong with it. Then they had to keep it overnight Thursday while they overnighted a new part for the sunroof top. I told them I was scheduled to drive out of town by 9am on Friday and Dewayne said he wasn't sure it'd be done by then. But then I got a call at 8:30am on Friday saying they were all done!

Sunroof works. The top opens smoothly without the loud "knuckle-cracking" sound. I had a Mini loaner and the repair was finished as quickly as they could. Thumps up except for:
1. I asked them not to wash it and they did - Jeremy had just done a great detailing job on Lky Fin and I didn't want them to mess it up, and
2. I was scared they would ding the door like they did the last time. But they didn't this time. Whew!

I thought I was the only one with top issues...

p.s. 2005 MCSC still under 30k miles so I was covered. Whew again, but I am totally signing up for the extended warranty due to all the extra moving parts.

 

Make sure you go with an aftermarket warranty company then. The Mini extended warranty doesn't cover the convertible top. Talk about ludicrous....

 

Nope definitely not the only one. I was opening my roof a while back and the driver's side unlatched while the passenger side did not. Got it fixed by the dealer, but since then I've noticed a few strange noises and the sound of wind where I had quiet before.

 

Thats ridiculous.