Buy all your VW California Accessories at the Club Shop Visit Shop

Vibration in Pop Top

D

Darrel Crilley

Messages
4
Location
Hathersage
Vehicle
Looking to buy
Hi
I find myself seeking help. We have a 2019 4 motion Ocean. Delighted with the vehicle until ..,on a month long trip round Europe the pop top shudders and vibrates like a wobble board at 70-80 on all French and German motorways. I had driven it to Switzerland in June without roof box. No problem at speed. Now we have a Kamei 500 roofbox fitted. It seems apparent that either this attachment or a failure in the locking mechanism is allowing air in (??). The box seems to be in the right position. I owned two Westfslia Marco Polos over 5 years and never once had any problem with the same roof box attached. I had a manual roof in the first model, an electric hydraulic in the second. There was no question of the quite horrific vibration we now experience. Initially the roof box had very light weight items in it and I’ve subsequently put some heavy bags up front in the box to see if it makes a difference - it doesn’t alter much. The problem is not cross wind dependent since it happens in the calmest conditions snd in all directions. The roof seems to complete its closure process and yields the ‘closed’ message.

Quite perplexed by this problem. Do the pop tops have some intrinsic deficiency wherein they just cannot cope with the extra turbulence a roof box attachment entails ?

I would hope not at the price point and given that this type of vehicle is seen all over Europe in the winter with all manner of ski boxes up top.

VW Commercial Lancashire declared complete ignorance of the issue and could offer no insight at all.

Any help or insights much appreciated.

KR

Darrel
 
Hi
I find myself seeking help. We have a 2019 4 motion Ocean. Delighted with the vehicle until ..,on a month long trip round Europe the pop top shudders and vibrates like a wobble board at 70-80 on all French and German motorways. I had driven it to Switzerland in June without roof box. No problem at speed. Now we have a Kamei 500 roofbox fitted. It seems apparent that either this attachment or a failure in the locking mechanism is allowing air in (??). The box seems to be in the right position. I owned two Westfslia Marco Polos over 5 years and never once had any problem with the same roof box attached. I had a manual roof in the first model, an electric hydraulic in the second. There was no question of the quite horrific vibration we now experience. Initially the roof box had very light weight items in it and I’ve subsequently put some heavy bags up front in the box to see if it makes a difference - it doesn’t alter much. The problem is not cross wind dependent since it happens in the calmest conditions snd in all directions. The roof seems to complete its closure process and yields the ‘closed’ message.

Quite perplexed by this problem. Do the pop tops have some intrinsic deficiency wherein they just cannot cope with the extra turbulence a roof box attachment entails ?

I would hope not at the price point and given that this type of vehicle is seen all over Europe in the winter with all manner of ski boxes up top.

VW Commercial Lancashire declared complete ignorance of the issue and could offer no insight at all.

Any help or insights much appreciated.

KR

Darrel
Not something I recollect ever having been mentioned before on the Forum relating to a Roofbox.
One episode mentioned, below, possibly relating to Solar Panels.

 
Have checked that all the fixings of the scissor mechanism are not loose ?
 
Can the roof box be tried in different positions fore and aft on the roof?

Aerodynamics: could be you have it in the one place where it will react. 10cm either way and it might be fine?
 
Thanks for these responses . I stripped the roof while staying at a friend’s house who coincidentally has a 2019 California. Having open snd closed the roof without roof box and listened carefully to the closure mechanism on both vehicles I am satisfied that the mechanism appears to be working as intended. Roof box moved forward slightly . Alas , no joy. I’m thinking that the box needs to be very far forward to complete the testing. We are heading up through France and at 80 the vibration and wobble is highly intrusive and concerning. We have settled for tootling north. I’ll report back once I’ve had a chance to try the rack/ box in a much more forward position.

KR

Darrel
 
It won’t be the roof box. They are more aerodynamic than the van.

On a longer trip we have solar panels, skinny roof box & stack of surfboards. The only noise we get is a flappy boardbag once you hit 70mph, which is cured by putting an additional roof rack strap around the board stack to stop the bottom boardbag fabric from touching the roof.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Fitz@CFB
Replies
1
Views
927
WelshGas
WelshGas
SpeedyVW
Replies
16
Views
4K
wunnspeed
wunnspeed
A
Replies
30
Views
6K
BeeBee
B
Cali-Dreaming
Replies
3
Views
1K
Max-Felix
Max-Felix
Back
Top