Help! My top is acting up.

[cornishon]

I've owned my 09 XLR for about 6 months now. About 3 months ago I started having an intermittent problem with putting the top up. So far I had about 4 instances where the top would refuse to close on my first try. Here's what happens, usually after driving in the city for 30-40 min with the top down.

- with engine running, transmission in park, doors closed, press the top button to close the top
- trunk opens normally and lid goes to fully open position
- the tonneau cover refuses to fold under trunk - the pump keeps working but nothing happens, as if the tonneau is stuck to the trunk.

In three cases I was able to close the top by simply cycling back to "top open position" (trunk lid goes to closed and latched) and then after waiting few seconds, pressing and holding the top switch.

Well, this weekend this did not work : the trunk lid remained stuck in open position and would not close neither by pressing the trunk button on the bottom of the trunk lid, nor by using the top open/close switch. I decided to wait and give it a try later. First time nothing happened, but after 2 tries (shut engine off, wait, turn engine on) the top finally closed.

On Monday I look the car to the dealer. As I suspected, this kind of malfunction is of the worst "could not reproduce" type. The technician checked all sensors and everything was in range, and there were no codes stored in the BCM. Also, the top worked just fine at the dealers.

My best guess would be a bad electrical connection somewhere in the top harness that prevents the tonneau from folding and the top from completing the cycle, but my hope is that someone on this forum may have had the same malfunction and had it all figured out.

Thanks!

Pavel

 

[monepit]

Mine did the same thing for months. I finally got frustrated and took it to the dealer and told the tech it was his car until it was fixed. Drive it till it act's up. He drove it to lunch that day and it acted up. He held the button down until he got back to the dealer and hooked a tech 2 to it. Turned out to be a position sensor acting up intermittently. He replaced it and it has worked great since.

 

[ccclarke]

Ditto with the symptoms, only mine was a hard fault caused by a faulty top position sensor. It's worked like a champ after being replaced.

CC

 

[mtrocket]

Mine was intermittent also... after several trips to the dealer with the dreaded "can't reproduce", finally they replaced 2 or 3 intermittently faulty top position sensors. Has worked great ever since... knock on wood. Good luck!!

 

[cornishon]

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback. Seems the only way to solve this is to leave the car with the dealer until they reproduce the problem to figure out which sensors are acting up. I'll let them have it for a few days. Will post update once I get it back

Pavel

 

[Cadillac Tech]

It sounds like the decklid position sensor that is located on the left side decklid linkage.