Short soft top won't click into place

[jmcvaughn]

Hi all,

This is regarding my S3 Exige but figured the Elise sub-forum is more appropriate.

I've recently received my soft top and have tried to fit it, so far without making any adjustments to tensioning cables.

I can pull the side rails into place but as per the title, the LH rear and RH front latches will not click into place, even only doing one side at a time (i.e. without tension) as well as with tension. The opposing latches are absolutely fine.

I'm not aware of nor did I notice any adjustability with the latch nor anything pertaining to this in the service manual.

Does anybody have any ideas or has run into this before?

Thanks!

[jmcvaughn]

Hi all,

Just an update in case this helps anybody else.

The LH rear latch just needed a little more pressure and then it would consistently latch without issues.

Thanks to Dave at Hangar111, the issue with the RH front latch has been determined to be an excess of sealant on the roof itself making contact with the latch plate, preventing the roof from rotating enough to click into place.

I tried this with two soft tops from the same batch (recent, from April this year). The nature of the fitment issues between the two soft tops were identical. The sealant appears to be very consistently applied across different roofs. If you run into this with one roof, I'm doubtful that another roof from recent batches (i.e. from the new supplier) will fit. Note that this is just as a result of incompatible tolerances (for want of a better term); if you obtain an older roof you're unlikely to run into this.

This has apparently been seen with a couple of other cars, and has been reported to Lotus via the dealer network. Fingers crossed they sort this...