As noted by ne14t, I was able to just push the top up button shortly
Note when you take the horizontal torx bolt out to pull up the panel, if it's popped up already from force, the little metal bracket that is about 3 inches long and pointy at one end (that end fits into the longer panel) may fall down into the well. That happened to me. You can retrieve it with an extendable magnet or if you can get your hand in there.
I got everything snapped back into the tracks and sprayed some silicone teflon on the track (there are also little white caps on the round pegs on the square piece that help it slide....one was missing on mine...
see pic below).
Unfortunately, the cable did break at the plastic weakpoint noted in this thread. I'll have to try the electrical connector idea.
So there is no BMW part to just replace it? Is it rivited into the arm or something or would you have to replace the entire cable (or do they even sell the cable?)?
