You might remember another MINI at PG Trionic a while back – Marie Catherine’s new convertible …
Sadly she has been having some problems with the roof on this car. In the (rare) hot weather about six weeks ago, the roof refused to open fully – the “sunroof” section worked but after that there was no more opening and just a flashing “fault” light.
I remembered reading of similar “too-hot-to-open” faults with early convertibles, identified as a problem with an overtemperature protection sensor on the motor, so we took the car to MINI Peabody and the motor was replaced.
But in the recent hot days, the convertible again refuses to open fully – although if you drive it for five minutes then the roof will happily open all the way (presumably the air movement cools the motor down).
Gary at MINI Peabody tells me of at least one more convertible with the same problem, but I am surprised not to be reading more about it online. If the original motor and the replacement have the same fault, there must be lots more convertibles out there with the same issue.
Perhaps many convertibles are garaged so the strong sun does not get a chance to heat the car too much?
So here is an informal poll – any convertible owners with the same problem? Or any convertible owners who leave their car out in hot sun and don’t have any problem?
M&I / GBMINI 
speaking of convertibles, any chance of an auto-down circuit??
All hail the Church of the AutoUp! Every time I use it I give a BIG Hallelujah!
Now what we need is a AutoClose sunroof. Hate that only close to vent feature!
RB
Ian, I have an 05 MCSc that Peabody delivered at the end of May. I only had the top refuse to open all the way once. It was not THAT hot out. After driving for 10 minutes, I tried again and it worked. I didn’t think anything of it, but now I will mention it when I go in for service. Thanks, Larry
Interesting Larry … maybe more people like you experience the issue rarely and don’t report it; thanks.
Sean – buy me a convertible then I can work on a circuit for it! 😉
RB – ditto; I don’t have a sunroof 😉
I have an MCSC that I park outside in the sun at work every day. We’ve had a number of days well into the 90’s here in Amherst, and I’ve had no problems. (Car is a 09/04 build.)
It was around 93 degrees here yesterday when my top wouldn’t go past sunroof position. This is the second time this has happened since I got my car last month. It’s going to the dealer already for the EML and SES problem, so I’ll bring this up to them too.
My cabrio sits outside every day at work and has never had a problem with the top
I have a black MCSC with a black top. Had some very hot sunny days recently and I did have a few instances of the top refusing to open past sunroof mode. I closed it a little way and retried and it worked. This has probably happend twice.