That’s nice to know thanks.

 

Amazing job. Looks great! I wish I had known about this before. Amazing.

 

I owe a debt of gratitude to Wildcat first for opening this thread but mostly for being generous with his time on the phone to share with me details and pitfalls of this job.

I needed to replace the top and the inside liner. I purchased both from Scuderia for about $5,200 (roughly half of the price given to me by my local Aston dealer). These parts seem to be made to order. The top took 2 months from order to delivery, the liner over 3 months.

Scuderia delivers parts duties paid and will send a second invoice to cover shipping and duties before shipping the parts. I've ordered in the past from Aston Bits (who is also able to source these parts), and they leave duties to be collected by the courier. I priced them both before buying and frankly chose Scuderia because of the comprehensiveness of its website.

The local shop recommended for the job wanted over $4k for installing the parts. I build cars as a hobby and decided that so long as no stitching was required I'd give it a try.

It took me 9 hours over the course of 2 days to finish the job and the result is perfect. Knowing what I do now, I could probably do it in half the time.

I will gladly share my experience and advice with anyone looking to try this at home.




Here's a pic of the delaminated rear window.



This pic shows the dire shape of the inside liner.



Here's a pic of the new top.



Another angle of the new top. The inside liner looks great, too.

 

looks really nice, job well done.

 

Good job, well done! It's not rocket science and if you take your time and do some research, it can be done in anyone's home garage with the proper tools.

 

Wondering what the yellow, plastic looking lining stuff is in the second picture? Looks like it's peeling off. My son just bought a 16k mi V8 Vantage Roadster and i noticed a little of that falling out at the area of the top where the seatbelts attach to the car. Thanks.

 

It's a moisture barrier that's laminated to the inside of the top. I started noticing what you noticed about 6 or 9 months before my rear window began delaminating at the top. I'd advise your son to order a new top and liner now because they're made to order and mine took several months to come in. I saved a bundle by buying through Aston Martin bits or Scuderia Parts (I can't recall which), and given the current USD/GBP exchange rate the same should be the case today.

 

Thanks Mike. I have an 07 V8 Vantage Roadster and have not had any problems. His car, an 08, only has 16k mi, is it normally a heat related thing? Will that allow moisture into the car? It looks like new in and out with the exception of that yellow plastic coming undone/disintegrating. Thanks again.

 

mine is destroyed completely (liner) and to me it looked like it was over kill to replace exterior canopy (soft top ) and liner so I just did soft top. I am in Florida and I drive my car rain or shine, it’s parked outside at my office in sun and rain and no moisture has made in. I actually was so annoyed by that yellow orange film flying everywhere I actually removed it by scrapping it off from the headliner

 

I think it has a lot to do with the heat in Florida. My car is garaged except when I'm playing golf. I have 5 cars I rotate among and my top lasted 8 years. And the car is garaged for 5 1/2 months during the summers when I'm north. So I'd say that the heat and humidity in south Florida have a lot to do with it. A friend with a 5-year old Roller just experienced the same thing. He uses his car as a daily driver and parks it at work 5 days a week.

It's not really a problem until the rear window delaminates. The top won't leak even after the barrier peels. But the window is glued in place and it's only a matter of time down here.

 

Makes sense, thanks guys. We are also in Florida, down in the Naples area. He plans on making the Aston his daily driver, I'll pass the info along to him. I keep mine up in Ohio and have never had any issues. I'm the original owner and only have around 12k miles on it. They're great cars, real values for the money, and he's always wanted one. This convertible top thing is interesting, do you hear the same thing on cars whose tops are not so heavily padded, like those from Mercedes, Porsche etc? Thanks.

 

Look on line, and it is common on most convertible tops. Audi TT, Mercedes, and Porsche convertibles all have that issue. Usually it is the rear window separating. My DB9 was orginally a Texas car, and I had an issue with the rear window separating. Steel Wings was able to fix it without replacing the top, for about 1/10 the cost.

 

Any one have a picture of what the back window looks like when the delamination starts? He has about a 2 inch section at the bottom where it is not completely attached and there is a small gap of maybe 1/8inch. We washed the car yesterday, going to apply 303 Fabric guard to the top, and I noticed that. Thanks.

 

Mine and the couple others I've seen, including the Rolls Royce, began delaminating at the center top of the window. I think the weight of the window and the tension down the middle make that the most vulnerable spot. It looks like a small pucker when it begins. I ignored it until it became an obvious 2-3" wide gap, and from that time to complete failure was only a matter of a couple or three weeks. I can see the same thing happening starting at the bottom and staying there as tension is relieved along the top. I've read here about someone in Florida (I think the Orlando area) who is able to re-glue the window. That obviously doesn't resolve the peeling membrane (which will continue to shed sticky amber flakes all over the place), but it's undoubtedly far cheaper than replacing the top.

 

I have the same issue with my '09 Vantage. In my research, I found the following aftermarket option. I've not used them, so can not comment on quality. Quoted at $2369 including shipping.

http://www.oemplusauto.com/