Stuck blind rear side window

zeratul · May 8, 2016

My Beach MY 2015 is about a year old so still under warrenty. One of the blinds, for the rearmost side window, doesn't go up anymore, it looks like there's no spring tension ..
Is this something I can fix myself?
Going to the garage to have it checked, then again to have the spare parts installed, means 2 half days of holiday for me as the garage is 30km+traffic jams away, so it's very "expensive". If I can replace a part myself I'd do it. Guess I have to take off part of the interior plastic, but where to start... ?

Hotel California · May 8, 2016

If it was still under warrenty , i would not be doing it myself. Thats why they call it "warrenty"
You could start taking the trim panels off , but where to start ...? won't have a clue!
Try to look here how the trim and parts are built , mabybe shed some light on things....
http://etka.cc/
It is a diffrent site as we used to go to to
Here
https://www.partsbase.org/vw/campmob-typ2-transp-lt-camp-eu-2013/
But that has been down a few weeks now

Freeley · May 8, 2016

No idea where you are in the world but if you have a friendly VW dealer near you then they might collect and deliver it back to you and leave you a loaner in its place.
I certainly wouldn't want to be doing anything myself while it's under warranty.
If it was just a bit stiff then I'd recommend spraying a bit of furniture polish in the rails and it will work a treat, but if it's completely jammed then a replacement blind is probably needed.
It's very easy to break the surrounding trims, my dealer did this when replacing one of ours and it had to go back in.

Sent from my Galaxy S6

SqueakyWheel · May 8, 2016

zeratul said:
My Beach MY 2015 is about a year old so still under warrenty. One of the blinds, for the rearmost side window, doesn't go up anymore, it looks like there's no spring tension ..
Is this something I can fix myself?
Going to the garage to have it checked, then again to have the spare parts installed, means 2 half days of holiday for me as the garage is 30km+traffic jams away, so it's very "expensive". If I can replace a part myself I'd do it. Guess I have to take off part of the interior plastic, but where to start... ?

Are you sure the bottom of the blind is still connected on both sides?

A couple of weeks after our 2015 Cali arrived, I found that the blind above the sink wouldn't stay down. I was getting ready to start dismantling when I noticed that the tension was only missing from the right hand side. Seems that if you don't pull the blind down absolutely horizontal, it's possible for one side to unclip from the runners. You can reattach again by again pulling the blind down at an angle ( trying not to crumble the blind too much ) which should give enough wiggle room to reattach.

Anyway, worth checking before booking a day in the garage.

Spud · May 9, 2016

If under warranty they should pick it up from home/work and drop back even give you courtesy car. However this happened to us and just a case of clipping wire back to plastic guide in channel

zeratul · May 9, 2016

Picking up the car and returning it? Not here in Belgium unfortunately. I can make an appointment to have it checked, I can then either wait for diagnosis and make another appointment after they received spare parts, or arrange transportation myself and pick the car up a couple of days later. That's the service offered here. I couldn't even order the California at my local VW dealer (they weren't allowed), because only a few are 'California certified'. That's why it's 30km away and about 45min-1hour in traffic. Of course they're only open during the hours that I have to be at work.
UK customer service seems a lot better..

bcasey · May 14, 2016

Hello Zeratul,

I had a similar problem with the same window, and it tended to jam in the fully down position, which made inspection difficult.

My Cali was out of warranty at the time. If you are still under warranty, it would make sense to involve the dealer.

If it's similar to my case, it can be fixed with a penknife, and by removing the blind from its guides.....the black plastic ends pull out of the alloy bottom bar (with the pulling handle), and with a bit of careful lifting of one side to get the blind out of its channel, maybe 30 degrees?

In my case, I discovered that at least one of the wire guides which hold the blind in position had worn through its plastic coating. This was bunching up, and jamming the blind. I "cured" the problem by removing the damaged coating with a penknife fully from both wires.

Several years later it is still problem-free. There doesn't seem to be any noticeable wear on the black plastic guides resulting from the absence of the coating on the wires.

The photo shows the remains of the coating at the bottom of the rear guidewire.

Plastic Panels:
Having damaged the area around the rear heater controls when installing a second reading light, I would think twice about removing the plastic panels. Hopefully the above may solve your problem without removing any panels.

VW seem to booby-trap these so that special tools are near-essential, and the necessary information is probably in some unavailable workshop manual. The Haynes manual (5743) does some general information on the T5, but not specific to the California.

zeratul · May 15, 2016

The problem seems to have magically disappeared?!
About these plastic panels, they have been removed once already, by a guy who installed rear speakers and replaced the front speakers, and did all te wiring. No harm was done.. it's definitely not so hard, he showed me where to start. Just use some plastic tools,he said...

Alform · Sep 26, 2018

Could I ask if the blind above the sink is supposed to have guide wires on both sides ?
I took into a dealer as the right side was popping out. They said that the guide wire is only on one side... ..i am wondering if that's actually true now

bcasey · Sep 26, 2018

Alform said:
Could I ask if the blind above the sink is supposed to have guide wires on both sides ?
I took into a dealer as the right side was popping out. They said that the guide wire is only on one side... ..i am wondering if that's actually true now

Hi,
My 2007 Cali definitely has two guidewires for each fabric blind, including the kitchen one. I doubt it could work very well with only one.

I took the upper “B” pillar plastic trim off recently to get at the sliding window base, and found it easy enough, I used a plastic bike tyre lever on the forward end at the passenger door, and this allows the rear edge clips to be eased off, showing the guide wire channel, it should be possible to see the wire, if it’s there but damaged/snapped etc

Alform · Sep 26, 2018

@bcasey
Thank you very much for that it's extremely helpful .

Jimbologo7409 · Jun 21, 2022

Anyones wires coated in plastic ? The ones over our door seemed to be but it’s come ofd ( brand new ) so wondered if it should of been removed during manufacture .

WelshGas · Jun 21, 2022

Jimbologo7409 said:
Anyones wires coated in plastic ? The ones over our door seemed to be but it’s come ofd ( brand new ) so wondered if it should of been removed during manufacture .

On mine, plastic coated until last 2 inches or so, but a T5.1