Installing a Rear Sunshade

A handful of E28s came equipped with a retractable rear sunshade, which pulls up through a slot in a special rear parcel shelf. Most US cars do not have this feature, but you can add one. The retrofit part is still available in Europe and an importer like Maximillian can get it for you for about $110. BMW part # is 82 129 406 984, “supplementary sunshade”. The unit comes with spring metal clips that are designed to snap around the rear edge of the parcel shelf. Well this won’t work in US M5s, and maybe not in any US cars. I later found out that the part is supposed to be Euro only. The center brake light also gets in the way.

The clips are riveted to the ends of the unit. So I just drilled out the rivets and removed the clips. I then figured I could remove the parcel shelf and attach the unit with a screw at either end, which I may still do at some point. But for now I took the easy way out. I just put three 6” lengths of the prickly side of Velcro under the unit, attaching them with double-sided foam tape. The Velcro sticks quite well to the carpet on the parcel shelf, and so far it is working fine. You also have the advantage of being able to remove the unit at any time. The unit itself is basically a 1 ˝” square by maybe 3’ long tube with the rolled shade inside. It fits quite well between the speakers and the raised rear portion of the parcel shelf.

The unit comes with two small J-shaped metal hooks whose top ends are bent at 90 deg. You simply mark where they belong and then using a screwdriver, lift up the rear window seal and force the hook between it and the window. The 90 deg end then snaps over the top of the glass and is held in place by the seal.

So far I am very happy with the unit. I seems to be of high quality, helps to keep the car cooler, back seat passengers like it, and it protects my rear seats from the sun. And it also doesn’t rattle or buzz or anything when hitting bumps.

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