Frank,

Thanks for the word of warning. You saved one person (ME!) from experiencing yet another Volvo Nightmare.

I had a S70 that was a total pile of junk but thought that I might be able to put up with the car being unreliable if it were not a "daily driver". A convertible top is a critical system (almost like landing gear on a plane). The c70's are starting to drop into the low 30's and a 5speed high pressure turbo would be a nice car.

Its really pathetic that Volvo could not get their top design right. When Mercedes released the r129 SL one could have perhaps seen design issues like Volvo 's C70 since it was the first fully automatic top of its kind. Considering that the C70 top is almost a carbon copy of the MB and BMW convertible top's design they could have perhaps "gotten it right" :).

Its a shame since its such a nice car.

Perhaps if someone was motivated enough they could "override" the sensors within the top mechanism and just "manually" deploy the motors with a series of rocker switches. I wonder if it would be possible to install such a system under a seat somewhere in the event that a sensor goes whacky and you can get it through a "cycle" manually and it might start working manually again. I might consider one if I could "re-engineer" the top with some manual overrides. Perhaps an idea for some fustrated C70 owners out there.

Robert Chase.