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I have the feeling though that most keep the HT on the majority of the time.
Yep... I'm in that category; even though I live in Southern California the HT has only been off the car for about ten minutes in the last year.
For those of you with the hard top, trying to get rid of any squeaks and rattles is pretty easy too since rattling soft/hard top latches is well documented here at S2KI.
To quiet the hard top is a two step process:
(1) Get rid of squeaks - Go to the dealer and buy some Shin Etsu silicone lube, then apply it to all the soft black rubber seals on the outside edges of the hard top/windshield where the HT mates to the windshield, body, and around the windows.
(2) Fix rattling latches - Go to the dealer and get some EPT Sealant (foam weather stripping from Home Depot works too). My local dealer was nice enough to cut off a small piece from their big roll.
I performed the fix, AND tied down the latch hooks on each side of the lowered soft top with plastic cable ties (rubber bands work too); now my hard top is very, very, quiet - even on the bumpiest roads.
Sorry for the noob question, but I need to get this clear. When I install the HT, does it mean that that softtop is deactivated ?? i.e. I cannot use the softop anymore until I permanently reomove the HT setup.
The reason I am asking is where I live, there's frequest passing showers, I dont want to be caught in the rain on days I decide to remove the HT temporary for a spin when the wheather is good.
The hardtop is like your OEM tonneau cover. Put the hardtop on the car and you should not utilize the convertible canvas top. Take off the hardtop to go topless with full use of the canvas top if it should ever rain. You are not disconnecting the canvas top to install the hardtop.
Those who remove the canvas hardtop assembly from the S, do so to lighten the car only and not because they have to.
The hard top does not do anything to prevent use of the soft top when the hardtop is not physically on the car. Unless of course you remove the soft top all together like myself and a few others have because of weight and the fact that I rarely use the darned thing :
........to buy a HT.
