Hello, I have bought this CLK with a soft top that does not work and this is what happened next. First symptom was that top wasn’t moving, fixed a few broken switches and it worked! But just then the next problem appeared.. it stuck halfway because the rear part of the soft top (where the rear glass is) stopped at an 45 degrees angle, there was no way that the door on the trunk was going to get up without hitting it. After a day of trying to understand why it gets stuck there I realised the top wasn’t from this car, it might have been from the earlier model because everything fitted perfectly when closed. So I bought another soft top from uk and fitted it. Everything worked!! Soft top kept working for 2-3 months.
and now we get to the real problem.
One day after hitting a pothole the dash started displaying top in operation. Stopped to see if the top works, it didn’t. So i get back home and visually inspect every joint to be in it’s place, I got back in the car, started it and still got the message, tried top and worked! But it never sees that is closed. In the evening and the next morning it worked normally(sees top open or close) and in the noon it started playing up again, that was when I realised it’s the heat that is causing the problem, outside is over 30 celsius. The next day it did the same, when it got hot outside it started doing again and in the evening everything is back to normal. So I immediately checked the switch that sees top open and closed(when I checked top was working) ofc measuring the switch itself is not conclusive so i unplugged it and put the wires in short (plugged a shunt) to see what happens... the top worked normally no flaws, even said that top is closed and open without the switch, interesting.. then I tried with the connector fully unplugged and it worked but top in operation message was there when top was closed. After this I shunted and left it like that until the next day, and surprise the top in operation was still there after it got hot outside. So now I am stuck atm because I don’t have wiring diagrams nor a test for it, tried my launch but only sees ecu and abs. Gonna try and contact someone with mb star but that is hard in my area, until then maybe someone has some ideas. Btw is it normal for the soft top to work without that switch? Thinking a short would cause this sort of problems, maybe when I swapped top did something wrong, but already checked and seems ok

 

Having gone this road many times i can only recommend you find a great mercedes mechanic to trouble shoot it, i wasted a lot of money and time trying to sort it.m I got lucky eventually, are you near Los angeles?

 

Sadly not. I am from Romania and the dealership here where I live is wrecked. When I contacted them for my previous problems they said that they only fully replace them, they don’t troubleshoot them and in my experience as a diy I think I fixed worse problems than them. So atm I haven’t found anyone to be able to troubleshoot corectly and they always charge even if they mess things up(that is how I started to learn to troubleshoot myself). Waiting to get a diagnose next week, and I’ll carry on from there. I also need to know where the open/closed top switch wires go. I think they go to the cluster.

 

https://www.tophydraulics.com/

try this site for tips and you can email owner Klaus.

also the cover thing in the trunk, it is held in place by some shocks, if those shocks get weak and no longer hold it in place it will not let top operate, check that.

 

Thanks for the reply, already checked the tray and struts, will pm them. Btw the top operates, but it doesn’t see if it is closed or open so I always get top in operation message in cluster and beeps and turns red when I drive.

 

Sounds like just a sensor then.