Hello new owner with an old CLK 320 Convertible...

[simm31]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to this forum. I'm in Essex in the UK and on a whim have bought my neighbours old CLK Convertible to enjoy in the finer weather. I also have a C250 Estate AMG Sport on a 2010 MY.

The CLK (2001 X) has just been run in at 100k and is getting about 33MPG on mid runs, pretty good.

My brother owns a garage and does a lot of work on Merc's and other high end German stuff.

Roof is OK but fails to work all the time, hydraulic fluid is at the correct level but despite replacing the brake switch (behind brake pedal) to clear the ABS/BAS issue it's still coming on - so with some fiddling and turning the car on and off the roof does reset.

Question 1 - what else should be check to ensure the roof will be reliable or are the simply problematic?

Question 2 - Does the ABS/BAS issue stop the roof working? And is it unusual for it to still be showing after replacing the brake switch?

Question 3 - the car will only indicate right, all functions on the stalk work, hazards work, wipers, washers and high beam but it will not indicate left (most of the time) fuses in front SAM are OK -what else should be looked at?

I'm sure these are common issues that have been covered before, I don't have 100's to waste on this fun toy, but clearly it has to be sage (turn signals) and the roof should be more reliable than it currently is...any help to point me around this forum would be great.

Thank you all!

Simon

 

[mercedes13156]

I've got the next model along, the A209. Shouldn't be much different.

Q1 - I had a similar problem. If you open the roof and look at the top of the screen where the hooks on the roof locate, you'll find a couple of steel flaps which you can press down. There's a microswitch under the flaps which need to be pressed in order for the roof to work. Spray some contact cleaner in, wait a few minutes then push the flaps down as far as they'll go until you feel the switches clicking. Do it a few times until they click consistently. There's a plastic cover over the switches that moves around and the hooks don't catch them properly. You need to clean and activate them every so often to keep the roof working properly. STAR also tell you what's wrong if it's not that.

Q2 - ABS problems shouldn't stop the roof working. if you have a new brake switch, you have another kind of ABS/BAS problem. In mine, the steering angle sensor failed. Get it onto some good diagnostic equipment, preferably STAR and don't guess.

Q3 My car won't hold the indicator on when you're turning right. It's a bit annoying, but I don't drive it very often. It will keep indicating if you indicate when the steering wheel is not sitting dead ahead. i.e. Turn slightly, then indicate. The mechanism is a plastic/nylon cam arrangement and might just need cleaned. To get to it, you need to remove the airbag (TORX 30), steering wheel (10mm Allen plug with a long bar and someone to hold the wheel so you don't break the ignition lock), steering angle sensor (Just pulls off, but carefullly), and the stalk is just sitting there ready to be cleaned with a scoot of contact cleaner. If it's completely goosed, a new one is about £85 from the dealer and about an hour of your time. (Keep the retaining screw from the old one, it doesn't come with the new stalk.)

The cruise stalk just pulls out and clicks back in when you expose the indicator stalk. Put the car on STAR diagnostics and you should be able to see which function isn't working in both stalks before you start dismantling stuff.

Hope this helps!