Roof self lowering due to wind?

Hi all, camping I'm cornwall, arrived at site and put roof up. It's windy but not excessively and although mainly got back into wind its definitely blowing more on one side of roof than the other

We noticed that the roof straps were looser on the side where the wind is hitting. Put key in ignition and when pressed open roof it went back up to full height. Thought maybe we just hadn't had it fully up first time. But 15 minutes later it had dropped again. Put key in ignition snd sure enough it went up again.

Is this some sort of failsafe against wind or (as I expect) do we have a problem?

That's the bend after about 10 minutes. I think it's sinking to about where it takes over doing it when raising, when you let go of the button

It shouldn't drop in the wind. It should be hydraulically locked. Try going down and up fully 5 or 6 times,this will bleed any air out of the system if that's the issue

Agreed - when we were camping last year it was so windy we had to drop the roof because we thought it would get damaged - even in that gale, the roof didn't drop by itself.

kernnowkarmann said:

I think it's sinking to about where it takes over doing it when raising, when you let go of the button

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I’m somewhat confused with what you are saying here. Are you saying that you let go of the button & the roof carries on raising?

When opening the roof you should be keeping the button pressed until the pump stops making any noise at all. At that point the roof should be taught all round & should stay like that all night. After a number of hours the roof should retention itself if it has sagged at all.

You also say that the roof went back up on its own when you put a key in the ignition?
This does not sound right. Apart from the auto retentioning the roof should never move without you pressing the control panel button. Turning the ignition on & off should not make the roof move on its own.

andyinluton said:

…. When opening the roof you should be keeping the button pressed until the pump stops making any noise at all…

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I have only raised my roof a few times, but have always stopped once the motor changes tone to a ‘struggle’. From what you say for optimum elevation and retention I should continue the press until the motor silences, ditto when lowering. Is that correct?

Viktorgeorge said:

I have only raised my roof a few times, but have always stopped once the motor changes tone to a ‘struggle’. From what you say for optimum elevation and retention I should continue the press until the motor silences, ditto when lowering. Is that correct?

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I’ve used both techniques when raising the roof and never had a problem with stopping when the motor noise went to “struggle“.

Yes should keep button pressed in on both directions until motor automatically cuts out , i find if you let go of button just before this, it keeps going anyway and again shuts it self down

Mowbotman said:

Yes should keep button pressed in on both directions until motor automatically cuts out , i find if you let go of button just before this, it keeps going anyway and again shuts it self down

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Definitely this

Hi, we’ve had this problem, the roof lowered a few centimeters on one side after an hour or so. The garage where we bought the California said it was conform the specifications. The roof can lower (sag) for up to 20 centimeters and this is still conform. They couldn’t / wouldn’t fix it. So we wen’t to another dealer. The car is still under warranty. There they managed to fix it, something with air or oil in the tubes, I don’t really know. Our first trip, everything ok. Second trip, the roof didn’t go up completely and lowered very uneven. So we kept the roof down for the rest of the test trip. After that the second dealer changed the ‘roll cylinder’ (rolcylinder in Dutch). Now we’re on a trip and we hope for the best. Test at home for a few hours was ok. So, according to us and the second dealer the roof sagging is not normal. I would have a dealer look at it. In windy weather it’s also annoying with the loose tent and the noise.
Good luck!

P.S. Since we speak Dutch, sorry for my English

Hi all, thanks for comments. After reading one if first I put it up and down a couple of times to bleed the hydraulics and that seemed to work. Fingers crossed for future!

Went to pull the bed down last night, heard a rubbing sound, saw the material was slightly buckled, and rented reading this thread.

The roof had been up for 2.5 days while I was camping, so van didn't move and no real weather issues. I've been using the roof a lot in the past 2 months..

I'll try the up/down thing 5-6 times tomorrow