I was recently at Honda Service and they performed a service that required the removal of my hardtop (they had to run a new cable to pop the gas tank lid). When I got there to pick up my car, the only thing they had left to do was put the hardtop back on. I got to watch them do this.

After putting the top on, the service manager turns the heat all the way up and puts the fan on full blast.

I said: "Thanks. It's cold out, but that's not necessary."

He replied: "That's not for you, that's for the hardtop. Although it doesn't say it in the OEM book, you should always heat up the cabin for 5 minutes or so after you put your hardtop back on."

Can't say I ever remember hearing about that here on S2Ki.

Has anyone EVER heard of this?

 

Never heard of this. Never done this. The only thing I could see would be to loosen up the rubber seals so the HT seats better, BUT, I can't imagine that simply turning the heat on high for 5 minutes would significantly change the temp of the seals on the HT.

 

Were they working on your car indoors? Did they keep the hardtop indoors when they took it off? This sounds like a "LOAD" to me. For 3 years now, I've simply put the HT onto the car at the beginning of winter and drove it out into the great outdoors. Never a problem. There must be a lot of "OLD WIVES" working at your dealership service. Can you find out the rationalle behind what they did?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by xviper
Were they working on your car indoors?

 

There have been reports of cracked windows when this is done. Heating a car indoors and driving it outside will "shock" the glass, and possibly shatter it. So not only have I never heard of this, I would say NOT to do that. I would only heat the car up OUTSIDE, thus allowing the glass to warm gradually. There is no possible benefit of heating otherwise.

 

Strange, never heard of this dilemma.