mike mendez

Hello out there, I just joined the club, it good to be here. I just bought a used 1998 SL 500 roadster. It has been sitting for nearly a year. The car history goes like this, It was bought at a salvage yard with minimal damage. The insurance company totaled it. The vehcile came without the hard top. The people that bought it called the original owner and asked to buy the hard top from him. They did and snapped the top own where it belonged. The battery had to be replaced when I bought it. Now, the red button on the dash next to the stick shift, won't release the top. Nor will the roll bar come up. It all has to be don manuelly. Is there a way to reset the computer to make the hydralics work?? Help!!!!

MB_Fahrer

try manually removing the hardtop, then manually raising the soft top, then lower the soft top by pulling back on the button on the dash and see if the soft top lowers into its storage compartment. If it does, then you are probably good to go. i had/have a similar issue with my '99 SL500... And that procedure fixes my car every time it decides to act up. Why a car with 24000 miles since new should have any problems at all im not sure... oh yes, its a Mercedes...

luda

Did you check the fuses and the oil level?

JaphetSLaw

I have similar problem with my top ... Maually raising or lowering the soft top is not a problem, but is ther a manual over-ride for the mechanism in the windshield to lock/unlock the front part of the top (and similarly for the mechanism behind the rear seats for locking the back part of the top) when the big red dash button isn't making the top operate the way it should ... Someone told me there's some mechanism in the trunk that's syupposed to be manual over-ride ...