Just Bought Xm, Info Needed!

I've just bought a lovely light metallic green 2.0 Si after a break of 7 years from XMs and there's a couple of little things that will need attending to, the sunroof doesn't open although the switches for open/close work and the motors run. I wondering what the problem is likely to be; does anyone have experience of these? The other thing is a whirring noise in the overhead unit, it emanates from a black cylinder about three inches long that is behind the courtesy light panel, can anyone tell me the purpose of this and if it should be whirring?

Thanks in advance

Loopy

Hi Loopy

Welcome back to the world of XMs. Your sunroof problem is probably a broken cable. According to the book this necessitates removal of the head lining but I found a man who said he could do it from outside, in the event I didn't have it done as I changed the car, so its worth enquiring unless you fancy doing it yourself - I didn't

The Whirring noise you refer to is probably the temperature sensor on the climate control, it contains a tiny fan to improve the speed of response. You may be able to oil it, otherwise get one from a scrap car.

Peter.N.

Hi Loopy

Peter is right about about the causes of your two problems. I would have a care in oiling the little temperature sensor fan bearings. The main problem with these is that they suck in not just air but fluf, dirt etc and this gets deposited on the sensor and into the fan bearings. Give it a good clean up then use a needle to put a spot of oil on the bearing and it should spin without noise. Surplus oil will just speed up the collection of more debris.
The sunroof motor uses spiral flexible steel cables in a channel for movements. A mixture of grease and rust tends too clog up the channels with time making the cables very stiff. The drive is usually a plastic cog which when it eventually gets too much resistance has the teeth sheared off. It is possible to take just the motor off and fit a new cog and spraying the visible cables with WD40 may ease them off enough to make it work for a while without destroying the new cog. This avoids taking everything to bits but unless it is used regularly it soon binds up again. A complete removal and rebuild is the best solution unless you decide as many XM owners do that the sun roof is best left shut and never used. If you take the sun roof out the make sure you blow out the four drain tubes as these are also a regular XM problem which you find out about only while driving around a right hand bend and getting a shower from the water trapped in the sun roof.

Regards

XMexc

Hi all, the comments on the little climate fan are right, only that I found the "service" results -as described- don't last too long, the noise returns about a month later, but the good thing is that it stays significantly lower than before. I found the impelers on mine full of a dust coating, which probably causes wear to the "bearing" or the axle it spins on, and imbalance on the long run, so it's rather impossible to bring it to the "new" state. Next time I do it I'll try a normal machine oil -I used baby-oil to start with-, perhaps the result will last longer. But it's worth it.

Note that ideas I've read elsewhere as "trimming the impeler because with time it slides down and touches the plastic casing" are nonsense...if u open it up, u'll see the impeler motor is a sort of magnetic arrangement that is constantly pulled upwards, so no chance of it touching the casing, it's just bearing/shaft wear that causes imbalance and then the noise.

When I was pissed off with mine, I bought a second hand one and it was as noisy as mine, better open up yours and treat it!


regards and enjoy the car!
George

Thanks for your advice guys, going to do the climate fan tonight and maybe lube the sunroof cables with plusgas a few times; it has a better penetrating effect than WD40 etc. so if after a good going-over with plusgas theres no joy I gotta hard top haha!

Sure I'll be back with more daft questions, thanks for the welcome!

Loopy

Hi Loopy,

Sound advice from the guys above. I see that you are noted as a guest. Why not join club-xm? Theres no joining fee, no credit cards, no spam, no viruses nothing other than XM talk. If you post a question like the one above you will automatically receive an e-mail each time someone replies with a new post on that thread.

cheers

noz

Hi Noz, sound advice there; job done!

Cheers

Loopy

P.S. I cleaned the mini-fan and its not really made a difference; if I can find my trusty pencil sharpener I'll make a batch of Loopys patent graphite'n'oil goop; something my dad taught me about 30 years ago and it is very handy for these tiny applications because you only need the oil almost as a carrier; WD is ok because it mostly evaporates leaving the graphite as the lubricant. The ol' man used it on N-gauge model loco engines to good effect. Softer pencils are better than the usual HB grade...

Loopy

This post has been edited by Loopy on October 03, 2006 09:19 pm