[limee1207]

Just got 98 se turbo convertible with 80,000 miles two weeks ago, love the car but trying to figure out the roof, got it for $2000 because roof didnt funtion but seller told me it could be done manually but come to find out thats not totally true. At first it didnt do anything changed some fuses,put reinforcement kit,changed 5th bow motor and have it to where it will lower itself but slows down when doing final step and when raising tonneau opens,5th bow raises and when soft top raises it goes up about 20 inches then get soft top message and it goes back down. I live about 4 hours from a saab dealer,so would like to trouble shoot as much as possible before i make the trip,please,please help someone must know whats wrong and i need to get my wife of my back.

 

[N.E. Swede]

Unfortunately, there's only so far you can go without a tech2. Good news is that it sounds like you're there. The potentiometers need to be programmed and overlap values set for the top to do a full cycle

 

[sideshowbob9]

I agree with N.E. Swede, sounds like you need to bring it into a SAAB dealer or independant garage that has a Tech 2 to get the roof reprogramed. When you start messing with the mechanicals of the roof, sometimes things get out of wack and the controler doesn't know what position the roof is in. Reprogramming will take care of that.

 

[limee1207]

thanks for such a quick reply, i was kinda hopeing that was what i would hear, a little scared it might be the soft top main motor.

 

[limee1207]

Hey guys u2 seem to know quite alot about this stuff,well today spent 10 hours going to ron carter saab in houston,one of the latches was loose so got message the whole way there but figured i would let them fix it.well after 3 hours dealer called said mechanic needed to talk to me,he said needed a new ecm he couldnt communicate with it,with tech2. When talking to him he never even knew what the tonneau motor was called yet mgr said hes been working on saab for 23 years.do u think he could be right if ecm was bad would i still get error messages.What made me upset was he never looked at one mechanism not even the ecm,what yall think please help next closest saab dealer is 4 hours away thanks.

 

[grkguy89]

those are the kinds of "techs" that make me wish i could easily come to those with convertible top issues
ive been able to fix more tops without the use of my tech2 when the dealer claimed there being the need to reprogram everything
i havent dealt with a mech soft top in a while

do you know how to disengage the vert motor and re-engage it?

 

[limee1207]

thanks for reply i have tried that,quick question does the tonneau motor only control the tonneau or is it involved in the rest of the roof movement.

 

[grkguy89]

yes it is involved in the whole top movement in a sense

i wasnt asking if you did that, but if you knew how to
and since you do

try this

try to semi engage the motor
in other words get it engages to the point where you get power to it again when hitting the top's switch but dont let the splines interlock (you might need two ppl)
that way you can hit the top switch in the close position a couple of times to almost reset the top
that can sometimes save you from having to reprogram the top
its not a sure thing cuz we dont know what the previous owner has tried

 

[limee1207]

great i will try in morning, thanks so much.