NB8A soft top. Repair or replace

[captaincabinets]

Hi all

Just bought my first MX-5 a few days ago. She needs a little bit of work and top of my list is the roof. There are a bunch of pics of the damage here:
http://imgur.com/gallery/tUhKD/new

As you can see the soft top is looking a bit sad. Not sure if it's worth repairing or just replacing. I'm tempted to just replace the whole thing with a tan / brown top which I think would go nicely with the green. Example of top colour:
http://hothoods.co.uk/hothoodsmx5/glass ... _large.jpg

Thoughts? Recommendations?

Thanks

[captaincabinets]

Oops, second link was:

[joshuam]

Wow, replace! No question about it. Once you get that kind of damage it means the material on the whole thing will be absolutely shot. Not worth spending a penny on patch ups.

I took a bit of a risk on the colour of mine and went from black to navy blue and I was extremely happy with the result. Tan on green is a popular combination, so if you like it, go for it

[captaincabinets]

Thanks Joshua. Did you get a Robbins replacement for yours? If so, where from and approx. how much did you pay?

[hks_kansei]

Looking at the smoothness around the split areas of the top it appears somebody has already made an attempt at repairs in the past.

repair really depends on what is more important, just being water-tight, or wanting it to actually look good as well.

For just keeping the rain out you can buy some vinyl and cut patches to shape and glue them on where needed.
It will look like an orphan's patchwork raincoat though.

To have it look good as well, probably needs to be replaced.

[captaincabinets]

It will look like an orphan's patchwork raincoat though.

Hahaha. Vivid imagery there.

Spoke to a few places today. Top price was $2100 installed

Will probably end up being half that if I import one myself and get the cheapest convertible top installer I can find to do it for me.

[93_Clubman]

get the cheapest convertible top installer I can find to do it for me.

Soft-top skin replacement (ie off frame) is time consuming - doubt any shop will do it for less than about $500.

[cherrymx5]

You can purchase a hardtop for less than that, then just patch your soft top and use it 'on occasion'


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[cherrymx5]

Spoke to a few places today. Top price was $2100 installed