Wind noise from Callifornia top

[dgroebl]

I've recently acquired a ti with the Cal top. The two springy sliding clips in the front of the top were broken. Luckily with a 4 week wait my BMW dealer was able to get me some new ones. I completely removed the top and painstakingly replaced the broken clips. Carefully reassembled everything and reinstalled the top. It now shuts nice and tight but the wind noise is almost the same! At about 40 mph I begin to hear some subtle wind noise. By 60 mph the wind noise is fairly significant. By 80 mph it's annoyingly loud. Is this normal? or is there something else that's not quite right with my top? Please share your thoughts.

Thanks!

[96cali]

Hard to judge but most do not complain about too much wind noise. There is a huge diff in the noise level during a cross wind though vs. head on.

All in all how was the removal and reinstall?

[dgroebl]

Actually removal and install was not too bad. You do have to remove the trim pieces from each of the A, B, and C pillars so that you can pull the head liner down and out of the way. Then it's simply held in place with about ~30 little torques bit screws. The whole sun roof assembly comes right out after that. Disassembling the sun roof assembly and then reassembling however was a very messy job that I really hope I never have to do again.

So driving at 60mph with no wind, would you say that your top makes more or less noise than the road noise from the tires? I'm trying to understand if mine is normal now or if it still has something wrong with it.

[1996 328ti]

You have a huge hole in your roof.
Wind noise is subjective.

[dgroebl]

So thank you for your response. I'm really quite desperate here.

Perhaps I should have worded my first post differently. Of course I know I have a giant hole in the roof! It was there for about 6 weeks while I waited for the parts, and then reassembled the top. And obviously wind noise is subjective. But I'm striving here to try to objectify it. Perhaps this will help. I work in the vehicle dynamics department at the Toyota proving ground and when we evaluate a vehicle this is how quantify it.

5 would be perfect - no noise at all
4 noticeably but absolutely acceptable to everyone
3 limit of acceptability
2 unacceptable
1 clearly unacceptable!

At 60 mph with no wind, how would you rate your Cal top? 4? Cause I'm thinking mine is a 2. If most people post 3's then perhaps I just need to get used to mine. But the only thing I've ever herd from the two people that I've talked to is that they thought they were very quite. Which makes my expectation ~ 3.5 - 4. But perhaps I am expecting too much from a 4 foot hole patched with cloth. Right now I would say that mine is as loud as a full convertible top. Once you 40 mph you can here a subtle air leak and it just gets worse the faster you go.

Thanks Again!

[campaiar]

FWIW, mine is a solid 3, close to a 2 on the highway.

Its clearly a 1 with the roof open.

[dgroebl]

Okay, well thank you that's good to hear and also slightly disappointing. Thank you

Actually I was really impressed with how little wind noise there was with the windows down and the top open! My tC is much much worse with the windows down and the sun roof open.

[96cali]

Man, that makes mine a 2! When I rode in your car I thought it was much quieter than mine, but the again we weren't going 60mph and I have a bad bearing that makes my tranny whine like crazy.

Campaiars opinion not withstanading, I would have rated mine a 3 or 2.

EDIT: After driving today with no wind and paying attention to exhaust drone and a little tire noise, I would rate mine a 3 or 4.

Originally Posted by campaiar

FWIW, mine is a solid 3, close to a 2 on the highway.

Its clearly a 1 with the roof open.

[DaedHead8]

I would rate my wind noise between a 3 and 4.

[DaPoets]

I get a hint of a low base sound from driving around 4mph and I found that if I close the roof by about 1/2 an inch from fully open then it goes away. Try that.