A few weeks ago, the weather in the DMV was too nice not to go for a drive with the top down. I have an Orvis dog cover on the rear seat with the headrest clips tucked in between the headrest and the opening around it. I know this is not the correct way to do this, but it hasn't been an issue in the past. I put the top down while in the garage, no issues, but 30 minutes later, in an outdoor parking lot, the roof would not operate. At least not completely. The rear cover went up without any issues, but that was it. The roof itself would not move at all.

At first, I thought it was because I had too much stuff in the trunk and I must have knocked the roof partition askew, as that's happened before. I emptied the trunk, and made sure the partition was properly closed. Still no movement with the roof. I totally forgot that the headrests can impact roof operation, but I didn't remember this until after I brought it to the dealer and they went through their diagnostics. The root cause of my inoperative roof was the dog seat cover head rest clip restricting the headrest from moving.

The dealer visit was serendipitous, as I was overdue for a tire change, which I forgot. I was planning on doing that before the winter, but since I don't really drive the E400 much in the winter, I forgot about the tires. I had noticed some roughness from the front end at highway speeds, no wonder. New Pirellis made all the difference. She's smooth as silk again.

After they told me that the roof was fine and no repair was necessary, I remembered that the Aircap was shot. I figured, while they have it, they may as well look at that, as it had not worked for over a year. I knew this was going to be expensive, as the part alone is over 1k and it's one of those assemblies that you have to replace the entire assembly, as opposed to repairing the defective part. Turns out the motor was fried. I probably could have done the job myself, but I don't really have anywhere I can work on it, so I had the dealer do the job. I had already prepared myself mentally to spend money on repairing the roof, which turned out to be fine, so spending the money on the Aircap, instead, wasn't a shock, but it was still expensive. The other mitigating factor is that I discovered my car is still worth a lot more than I thought. It seems that a lot of used cars have held their values during the pandemic, so it was worthwhile to spend this money, at least, that's one of the ways I justified the work in my head...

So...if you find yourself in a situation where the top doesn't seem to work, don't panic. There are a number of things you should check before panicking. I am kind of surprised the dealer didn't catch my inoperative Aircap in their initial diagnostic, but then again, I didn't mention anything about it initially.