It shrinks!

The top shrinks!

Krympning 1
Where the yellow arrows points the topframe is visible. With a new top fitted you can see the frame at all. On this car is the tensioning wire on the side broken. It is barely visible at the red arrows. On this car the top seem to be not so old. Then it may be possible to straight it out by fitting new wires, but this is a fairly complex job.

Krympning 2
When the top gets older the shrinking increase as you can see on this picture on the left.
The wire is broken, but here it wont help much to fit a new wire. But the top could still be functional for many years. As long as there is no cracks is it not necessary to fit a new one, but it may not look so nice.

Is there no way to stop the aging?
There is a lot of products for taking care of vinyl, but be careful the top may look greasy and unnaturally glossy after the treatment. Test on a small area first. These products probably does not help much. The best way is to keep the car in a dark garage and never expose the top to strong sunshine. A top cover is a good investment. A vinyl top may last for 20+ years but 10-15 years is more normal.

Look at the side windows on the second picture!
They does not fit very well, you can even see inside the car in the gap. This is because the adjustment screws is lose and probably more or less worn out. This is not a serious problem but causes draft and noise. It is fairly complicated to correct

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