Pluriel roof opening & closing intermittent

Hi all hopefully someone has the answers here i have looked through the other posts and couldn't see an answer, so thought i would start a new post.

I purchased the car for my wife about 9 months ago and everything with the roof was working fine. Opening & closing were no issue. She was learning to drive so the car wasn't being used all the time, mainly at weekends and some evenings. Anyway long story short, we had bad weather and the roof seemed to leak as there was water in the foot-well and in the boot where the spare wheel is kept. So we put the car in the garage to dry out after using towels etc. soak up most of the water. Its all dry not and yesterday i decided to take it out for a drive however, the battery was dead so after a quick jump (not like that ) the car started again. The only issue now was that the roof would not close all the way. If i turn the dial the roof moves 1 position and then stops no matter what i do. I then leave it for a while and retry the switch and it will move one more position but no further. It took me almost 40 mins to finally get the roof to close and now i dare not open it again in case i cant close it.

Has anyone had this issue? Could it be some kind of water ingression? It cant be the fuse as the mechanism does still seem to work but only at its own pace.

Any help would be appreciated, apologies for the long drawn out story!

markeyben wrote:Hi all hopefully someone has the answers here i have looked through the other posts and couldn't see an answer, so thought i would start a new post.

I purchased the car for my wife about 9 months ago and everything with the roof was working fine. Opening & closing were no issue. She was learning to drive so the car wasn't being used all the time, mainly at weekends and some evenings. Anyway long story short, we had bad weather and the roof seemed to leak as there was water in the foot-well and in the boot where the spare wheel is kept. So we put the car in the garage to dry out after using towels etc. soak up most of the water. Its all dry not and yesterday i decided to take it out for a drive however, the battery was dead so after a quick jump (not like that ) the car started again. The only issue now was that the roof would not close all the way. If i turn the dial the roof moves 1 position and then stops no matter what i do. I then leave it for a while and retry the switch and it will move one more position but no further. It took me almost 40 mins to finally get the roof to close and now i dare not open it again in case i cant close it.

Has anyone had this issue? Could it be some kind of water ingression? It cant be the fuse as the mechanism does still seem to work but only at its own pace.

Any help would be appreciated, apologies for the long drawn out story!

Hi markeyben.

The Pluriel roof often suffers from mechanical problems, particularly the roof drive motors and their driven power transfer cables.

You may have a very stiff roof, that would be worth investigating.

It not something to be taken on lightly unless you want to get very involved with mechanical things.

Thanks for the info C3driver52.

I greased the rails and all seems to be ok? I doubt it was anything I did but I'm grateful that its working again, could it of had anything to do with the battery losing charge?

markeyben wrote:Thanks for the info C3driver52.

I greased the rails and all seems to be ok? I doubt it was anything I did but I'm grateful that its working again, could it of had anything to do with the battery losing charge?

Probably a mechanical problem cured by greasing the runners.

But I don't think you will ever find out

Weirdly, yesterday I had a similar problem. First of all I noticed the boot would not open. Then I tried the roof, it really did not want to open. It did eventually open to first position and would close again, but that was it. So I performed the battery disconnection and reconnection routine as laid down in the Haynes manual (and elsewhere).

I then tried the roof and eventually it worked properly, all the way back and than all the way forward to close. There was also an electrical solenoidy type click from the boot. Sure enough the boot now opens normally.

PHEW!!!!!

So often the computers on modern cars seem to require this sort of treatment.

I am tempted to ask how you charged the dead battery. If you removed the leads and waited a bit then charged it, then reconnected it, then put the ignition on and waited a minute before doing anything that may be why it works now. If it worked before why would it suddenly need greasing? We've never needed to grease ours, although I wish we could stop it whistling at any speed above 60 mph! There really should be someway of resetting the roof to close properly to stop this. Anyway, whatever the ins and outs, well done! You fixed it! But this story may be of use to others who have had the same problem or may get it in the future. Do not ask me why ours started playing up. I have no idea!