Hi all,

On my 03 SL500, I can't say I've ever had any trouble with the vario roof.
Lately, out of the blue, the roof didn't fully close as the driver side front latch apparently came in too high and jammed. When this happened, I opened the roof back up just a little and tried to close it again - this time, the pin latched just fine and the roof pulled close - but I did notice that after this happened, the rear window on the drivers side was not fully up, but maybe an inch down. I had to manually raise it up.

When this happened to me the next time, i manually pulled the roof to the other side, tried again, and it latched just fine. Every time the roof got stuck on the final few inches, the corresponding side rear window was lowered just a little.

But now, these malalignment issues occur more frequently, on both the drivers and the passenger sides, and it seems like the front end of the vario meets the back end of the windshield about half an inch too high - and the long, black pins would get stuck right above where they should go in.

Any advise on how to fix this issue quickly?

Thanks!

R

Whenever your vario roof occasionally would lock on the last few inches because the alignment pins and/or latch seems to come in too 'high' to meet the front sockets - I found the cure!!!

Turns out, nothing is wrong with the rear part, the mechanism or the roof. What's wrong is the alignment of the front receptor parts.

I found out the hard way: After finally getting annoyed to strand with a roof stuck halfway closed mid-street, I decided to tear down the A pillar covers and the front center roof panel trim.

The mechanical sockets that are screwed onto the very front roof bar, the ones that the closing roof slides into, were, at least in my car, mounted too low as there were several layers of what seemed like a makeshift plastic distance holder. All together, these receiving parts were mounted, in my opinion, about 5-6 mm too low!!! That caused the pins to collide and lock agains the upper portion of the socket and prevent the roof from closing!

So I loosened all four screws, removed about half the plastic distance holders, and then I tightened the four screws again - which placed the sockets about 2-3 mm higher up in position. The roof now closes perfectly - every single time!!!

Hope this helps someone.

What I don't know, though, is whether these plastic distance holders are standard on the R230s or the previous D-bag owner was bored and installed them, just to stress me out.


R

Good info, thanks

There should be around 16 of nr. 20 on this link:
http://www.neoriginal.ru/cat/mb/part...475_/79_020__1

Don't know if those are the ones you removed..

Thanks for this diagram - part #20 was the lock adjustment pad that I had to remove - four to five of them per side!!!

MB lists this part number for these pads: A 2307951496

But why on earth would they come with too many of those pads installed from the factory? Or does the lock position shift as the vehicle ages?

Wear in the roof linkages can make the roof go in any possible direction,
Nothing to worry about.. you fixed it, be happy