Wintertime of our convertible discontent

We're working on a test group of four-seater convertibles for the May issue, just in time for the start of top-down season here in the Northeast.  But we're driving the cars around now, and it's gray, dreary, and cold outside. And on this particular day, it's raining hard enough to make Noah consider taking the Ark out of retirement. (Unlike other magazines or Web sites, we don't jet off to some sunny place with a fleet of borrowed ragtops to write a story.)

Then again, most of the cars in this group have folding hardtops. Part of the spin surrounding these complicated convertibles is that hardtops provide better interior isolation from noise and harsh weather. So despite the winter doom and gloom, we should be as happy as (hard-shell) clams, right?

Maybe not. Things started badly, right from when we picked up our Pontiac G6 GT at the dealer. The salesman took care to demonstrate the luggage blind; like most modern convertibles, you need to have a sliding cover in place in the trunk before the car allows you to fold the power top. This reduces trunk space, but it also prevents you from crushing your luggage with the top, or the top with your luggage. He lifted up the trunk lid, stuck his arm in to show how the blind worked - and then the heavy deck lid closed down on his arm. Seems our deck lid couldn't keep itself up. (We eventually got that fixed. And the salesman's arm was fine.)

Then the noises settled in. When it was cold, multiple noises and creaks came from the hardtop. Our G6 wasn't the only convertible in the fleet to do this; loud, nearly-continuous creaks came from the interface between the roof and windshield header in our hardtop Chrysler Sebring Limited convertible, as well. That's assuming you can hear them over the wind noise, suspension groans, or the luggage blind rattling around in the trunk. One logbook comment says that the Sebring is "noisier than a pickup truck loaded with plastic pipe."

The Sebring had another annoying problem. Like some other coupes, the power windows drop about an inch when you open the door. This lets cabin air out as you slam the big door, making it easier to shut the frameless glass against the weather stripping. But the windows developed a mind of their own - or maybe just plain lost it. Sometimes the window wouldn't automatically go all the way up. Other times the window seemed to freeze in place, so you had to slam the door to get it to close fully. Slamming the window across the weather stripping makes a sound like something is going to break. And once when parked and running, all four windows dropped about 3 inches on their own, as if the top was about to lower on its own.

So, are hardtops where it's at, modern convertible-speaking? One big plus: they do allow designers to put in larger rear windows. Our soft-top Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible is at the opposite extreme. The Eclipse's rear window is a narrow slit. Even backing it out of my narrow garage is scary and almost requires a seeing-eye dog to pull off this mundane task.

Like many things in the automotive world, how well a technology works depends on its execution. The Jaguar XK convertible we tested had a soft top that was nearly as quiet as some coupes. Our Saab 9-3 2.0T soft-top convertible isn't particularly noisy, and it has a decent sized rear window.

One last thought: even though it makes a car more desirable to rent during a Florida vacation, turning a crummy sedan into a crummy convertible doesn't make it better. 

Would someone please order a batch of warm, sunny weather? Soon. Life is too short to have a bunch of convertibles in the garage and lousy weather overhead. Especially when top-up is when they are least enjoyable.

—Tom Mutchler