Roof closing

[johnv]

Just been away for 4 days, no hookup, just leisure batteries running the fridge, phone chargers, lights etc, charge was still showing at 50% this morning. However, when I cam to close the roof, it did the usual bit of going quarter of the way down, then asking you to check stuff, then it went another quarter and stopped, with a message on the dashboard saying 'start engine', and the roof wouldn't close anymore. I started the engine (no problem at all) and tried to close the roof .. it just pinged loudly at me telling me the roof was open but still it wouldn't close. I the stopped the engine, and the roof closed.
Not good, as I was trying to sneak out of a campsite at 6am!
Any ideas on why this would happen? I can't think that there was much if anything draining the main battery in the 4 days, I would think it's 100% healthy (van is 2 years old) ?? I would really like to prevent this happening, as I will often use my van in the future for long weekends without hookup.

Thanks in advance, apologies for the lengthy post!

 

[Freeley]

I could be wrong but I think the roof uses the leisure batteries not the engine one which might explain things if your leisure battery reading was 50% ?
When I've raised or lowered the roof on mine before I've glanced at the ccu and seen that it's showing a drain of > 25A.

 

[Hotel California]

I did also heard from dealer that it' better to have engine running when opening closing the roof. Not so good for the batteries when engine not running.
So arrive at campspot ...open roof before turning engine of and leave the van...
When leaving , close roof last thing before leaving , start engine , close roof , do a check round to see nothing left behind under car...leave campspop...

Drill it in , it' s a good habbit!

 

[johnv]

sounds good .. so it goes down ok with the engine running?

 

[Tutti]

I was in Scotland last week when it was quite windy!! It was forecast for 24mph winds where we were camped and we slept in the roof. It wasn't too bad but we didn't sleep well because of the wind and rain. Next afternoon I came to close the roof, and following all the correct procedures, it started to close, travelled about a quarter of the way down and then stopped. It wouldn't go up or down. Complete silence. Eventually called VW assist. They were great. The mechanic that arrived was a nice bloke but not a VW specialist never mind a California one. He tried. He failed. We then went to the manual over-ride option and that wouldn't work either. I called my VW Van Centre and managed to get hold of the chap that deals with Californias. He made several suggestions. We checked fuses, battery power, scissor mechanism, turned the manual screw 4 full turns. The control panel showed a Diagnostic fault of 1000. VW engineer couldn't find any record of it. So, VW assist were busy making arrangements for hire cars for us, a covered recovery vehicle and a VW engineer from the Midlands !! - all to arrive the following day! So we slept in the van again that night, downstairs this time and had a better sleep even though the canvas was rattling in the wind.
The next day the hire car arrived followed by a VW engineer from Glasgow. Very nice chap who got in the van, pressed the button and the roof came down Methinks he has a magic thumb! He declared the van safe to drive so we unpacked the hire car and went home. Our beloved Cali is currently in Carlisle VW van centre. Reports so far is that they cannot find anything wrong with the electronic bit and on Friday afternoon were going to check the manual over-ride. Keep you posted. :crazy

 

[Isa Neal]

Hi several months later did you find out what it was?