Webasto subroof wind noise. Fix needed

[Cornishman]

I have a large webasto style fold back sunroof in my CSI. It makes too much noise at speeds over 50 mph.
When I got the car the roof material was lose when it was closed, so it ballooned and also flapped. I unstuck it and glued it tighter, however it then leaked water. So I unstuck it and added a foam strip inside to make it seal better. It now longer leaks, but the wind whistles through at over 50mph, hence the noise. I expect that if I drove it in the rain at these speeds it would also leak. I have now tried two different foam strips, no benefit. I don’t think that the material could be any tighter.
As I live in the UK never taking it in the rain is not a realistic way to stop it leaking, but it is the noise that upsets me the most.

What are my options?
Try a different style of sunroof, but unlikely to fit the current hole.
Try a bolt on wind deflector, that will require two bolt holes drilled and will be very non standard when viewed from any angle.
Get the entire thing removed and a roof panel made and welded in. Expensive and I lose my extra sun for slow cruising on those good days.

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[Markos]

My vote would be to weld in an original e9 sunroof or slick top. I know of about 4-5 roofs available in North America including mine. Not sure about the UK.

If you want to save money on paint you could wrap the roof in vinyl, which was a thing for UK cars.

 

[Keshav]

Have you considered contacting Webasto directly so try and fix the roof against water and ‘excessive’ wind noise? They are in the UK too. That’s a solid company with a good name, they might just have the right solution.
https://www.webasto.com/gb/

Short of that, probably swapping the roof is your best option. They come up for sale every so often, specially in Germany, with and without sunroof.

Keshav

 

[Cornishman]

I have done more research and it is a Britax sunroof, not webasto, although they are very similar.

I am off to meet a sunroof expert this weekend if the rain stops, so am hopefull that he can resolve the issue so that I don’t need to change things. Will keep you informed.

Thanks for the feedback and help. I like the suggstion of a wrapped vinyl roof as Marcos suggested, this is actually how the car was delivered, all UK series II CSI’s had a vinyl roof.

 

[Rek]

I never understood the attraction of the vinyl roof in the UK. I can only think that it made the car look like a convertible with the roof up and that made people feel special somehow.

 

[Markos]

I never understood the attraction of the vinyl roof in the UK. I can only think that it made the car look like a convertible with the roof up and that made people feel special somehow.

They were popular in the US during the 70’s and 80’s on domestic land yachts. I think that it looks nice on e9’s.

 

[Cornishman]

Yesterday I visited The Trimming Centre, which is in Lewis near Brighton in the south of the UK. They are experts in Webasto sunroofs and have the tools and templates to make them, apparently they do about 4 a week and post all over the world.
The owner Steve was extremely pleasant nad helpful, he took a good look at my roof and eventually said that he could not make it much better than it was, so leave it alone. Interesting and honest to turn down work. He then said, the noise comes from your poorly fitted windscreen. The recommendation was to tape up different parts of the car and road test to see if this changes the noise.
This is the next job on the list.
Thanks to all for the assistance.

 

[Keshav]

He then said, the noise comes from your poorly fitted windscreen.

Ill fitting Wind Screen you would/ should have noticed long before, with water entering the the driver compartment around the fuse box and behind the passenger glove box . That the coupe allows excessive air to enter is well known. Also judging from the one corner visible, the windshield seems to sit just right.
I added a pic of my car showing the typical excessive air entry points. Atleast in my case, that’s part of the E9 magic. Loud, hot and fast! At 200kms+ it feels like rocket science class!