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Top won't go up--What to do.

13K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  ribslk 
#1 ·
I bought an SLK280 just before Christmas and have logged nearly 5000 miles, enjoying every minute...except today.

I pulled into the driveway with the top down, drove into the carport and pushed the magic button. The Trunk lid opened but the top failed to deploy. I saw icons of roof descending and trunk open but no effort on the part of the car to raise my precious roof.

I grabbed the manual and started with the index. How could MB write such a weak index? Finding no satisfaction under "Roof" or "Manual" I ran to my computer and logged on to this forum and began searching. I found a lot of information about leaking cylinders and bad switches but wasn't finding my problem. Then I read on the forum that in the manual is instruction for manually raising the roof.

So, back to the manual. Finally, success. I discovered that due to the complication of the mechanism only an authorized Mercedes mechanic could raise the roof. It was looking bleak...

At that point my wife came home and scrutinizeded my problem. She said I had kitty liter in the trunk and if I could get that out, maybe it would work. Yes, I had been to Costco and I had purchased a full trunk of goodies and had lowered the top. I wrestled out the dog treats and the fresh salmon and finally was able to maneuver the two large kitty litter containers out the crack between the top and the trunk.

By then the roof error tracking program had reset itself and to my relief the top magically rose and settled in to the closed position.

I am not an expert on how the car knows what it does, but I do know that in the future I will be more careful about putting anything close to the plastic and it was one of the times I was genuinely glad my wife was right.
 
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#2 ·
My guess is that the amount of merchandise may have caused a jam somewhere and removing the pressure by extracting some of the merchandise remedied the jam. Thanks for the post. I presume the trunk lid separator was in place and there was no error message about it not being latched or in place.
 
#4 ·
I had set off to cut my mother's grass (she's 95) and had taken a battery booster that took up about a third of the space. Then, when I broke a belt I changed plans and went shopping. The cat litter was packaged with tops that stuck up and interfered with the lid separator when facing to the rear...so I turned them around and there appeared to be clearance. I assume that during the ride home they may have shifted or interfered with the separator.

When the top operation failed it appeared that the top started up because I could push it down about a half inch. I attempted to see if the separator was properly engaged...but couldn't make a determination if it was or wasn't.

The lesson learned is I should have allowed more clearance at the top by maybe putting the litter in the passenger footwell.
 
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