guys just want to inform you of a huge design weakness in the hard tops for e46 and e36..

don't get me wrong the hard tops are extremely well made and beautifully finished, fit perfectly and the latest ones are aluminium so are very light. They reduce wind noise, increase light in the car; during the daytime with a bigger rear window and more headroom and during the night time with the courtesy lights in the rear aide panels; they look fantastic too...at £1250 a very nice modification.

one problem - they take 3 minutes to put on. AND therefore, take 2 minutes to take off.

Monday morning at 4:30 am I am woken up by the police to find that thieves had broken every side window and stolen the hard top. in the process they damaged several of the interior panels and sratched pretty much all of the  upper panel sections including the boot, where they dragged the top across leaving a deep scrape.

My complaint is that there are two locating pillars which fit into the rear panel behind the door jam - very close to the central locking system!.. so why hasn't bmw figured out that they can have a dead-locking mechanism on the roof?