Holy Christ!!! The door and window lift design is one of THE WORST!!
 

Seriously, could you make the door and window design any worse BMW?

Here is the deal, I am pissed and need to vent a bit here. My wife's 2003 S window lifts stopped working. I figured I would change them myself, as the one's on my MCoupe and 740i are straight up easy. Not so fast in the Cooper. True to BMW design, the window lifts in the Cooper are pure garbage, plastic wheels that detoriate after a stiff breeze and all. But, with the Cooper, we have got the same rotten plastic all over a convoluted wire driven system. Also, the way they mouted the window to the lifts by some god awful sprocket washer, that is protected by darkness, sharp metal edges that fillet fingers, small area to work with, crevices that swallow allen keys whole, and to top it of the damn things were tightened by Migilla Gorilla at the factory! Good god, could they make the damn things anymore difficult to work with?

So I got the passenger window lift out, after 2 hrs(this does not include reinstalling the window)!! On to the driver door, things were going smoothly till I got to the forward torture sprocket. The damn thing was so tight, the allen key stripped the bolt, the allen key flew out, my hand slipped, and off with the skin! !@#$% This is after my knuckles are already chewn up from fiddling try to get the allen key into the center of the torture sprocket. Now the sprocket is stripped, and I will have to call Mini to see if I can get the tool to get the thing off. But from my reading, they will not sell the damn the tool that is needed to remove the little bastard. So, I may have to drive the car with no window in the passenger door, and a busted lift on the driver door, for 60 miles one way to the closest Mini just to have them loosen the damn thing. I suppose I will have to buy a new torture sprocket as well if they do not sell me the tool.

Anybody else feel that the doors and window regulator in these cars are garbage, right along with the Rubesque design they put in there?

Also, do you folks have any suggestions on how to get the sprocket off without the allen key or "the tool"?

Thanks for reading and allowing me to vent.