Hi everyone, I am a recent arrival to the Barchetta world having bought a 2000 silver B last week. I am really pleased with it and am looking forward to the maintenance side of things as a chance to get my hands dirty.

One issue I noted so far is that the bonnet release is sticky and that the spring does not fully pull it back into place (must be manually restored). This resulted in the bonnet slipping up to the hand release upon speeds above 30mph on my drive home from the dealer.

Does anyone have experience with this problem? I sprayed some wd40 on the catch and at the entrance of the cable sheathing but it was not the the sticking point. Any ideas?

I think you are going to have to scrap the B and send all the parts to me!!,
Can't help but welcome to the Forum, post some pics as soon as you can, I hope you sort her out soon.

Yes I had this similar problem and posted what I found below, first of all get the bonnet open!

'Thanks for the advice chaps, I did manage to get it open with mole grips and dismantled the bonnet catch mechanism again to see what was going wrong. Bit difficult to explain but where the spring is held in place by its coil the raised spigot that goes through the middle of the coil is very low and the coil sort of slips up it a bit making it somewhat inefficient. There's a small retaining bar which can be opened up and closed tight with pliers so took it apart, cleaned it up and then fitted it back together and really tightened the retaining bar back down on the spring with the pliers, this holds it much more efficiently on the spigot thing and no slipping. Just for everyones info'.
Stu

Thanks for the welcome Blue Sailfin and thanks for sharing your experience Stum. I will post some photos as soon as I get her out of the garage this weekend! Bonnet issue is luckily not so bad because it opens but does not automatically close - I will also try to document my repairs when I can figure out which part of the mechanism is catching.