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Got My New Smoothline Top! A Review

19K views 75 replies 17 participants last post by  WillF 
#1 ·
After 5 long months of anticipation, my new Smoothline hardtop arrived this week. I was looking for a top which had a bit more room in it behind the seats so that one could fit a rollbar with rearward bracing under it. I think this will fit the bill.

The top itself is very nicely put together and looks nice. I asked them to build it lighter than usual and it is maybe 15 pounds. The only downside is that the fitment is quite gappy - in the rain, water WILL come into the cabin. Since this is a track car, I'm not too worried about it, but I would be aware of this if you are looking to have a hardtop permanently replace your soft top. You could be in the odd position of having to remove the hardtop to drive in the rain!
 

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#3 ·
Looks great. Is that the Haartz Vinyl one? I had one that I loved on the roadster. When I added the Coupe to the family I decided to sell it to a Forum member. I am surprised to hear about the leaks. I had no issue with mine. The only thing I was careful about was when I washed the Sol I would not spray directly on the back window so water would not pool on the trunk lid. I drove through some major rain storms and had no leaks. When my top was ready I drove down to the factory to pick it up ( Haartz Vinyl so she was ready to go). They did the weather strip fitting and adjustments there on my Sol so maybe that is why she fit so well. Anyway, enjoy and looks great.
 
#5 ·
These are NEW tops? Thought that they had stopped making these years ago.
 
#9 ·
I sure did! The only issue was that I got two driver's side seals, not one driver and one passenger, so the front of the passenger seal has a big ol' gap. I just stuck 'em on, because as I said I don't care one bit about having a sealed cabin. The track is windows-open after all!

I am guessing if I had the car at the factory they could get it to fit perfectly.
 
#10 ·
Well that makes sense. When you said it was leaking that caused alarm bells to go off because others have had no issues or only small issues with leaking that they got fixed. Yours sounded unusual and evidently it is. Cheers
 
#11 ·
Mine leaks, but I don't drive the car in the winter or when it rains. I also have wind noise around the windows which could be alleviated if I adjusted the side windows to fit the hardtop better, but then you'd have to readjust them when going back to the convertible top. No thanks. When washing I'll spray the top, but avoid the windows and seals, including the rear hump area but water still manages to gets under the rear seal.

I think the top itself is made well, so it may be more about taking the time to adjust it correctly. Though the front and rear turnbolts are twisted about as tight as I can turn them. I also condition the seals when the top is removed which I do about one a year to check on the trunk area. Otherwise the top is on all the time because I like the look of it, and fell in love with the 2006 SEMA Weekend Racer concept.
 
#14 ·
Chiffonte...

For that five month wait did Jack (the supposed owner of Smoothline) keep telling you three more weeks three more weeks? What did you have to wind up saying to get him to understand he needed to get the top to you?!

I purchased mine in July and he has kept telling me "later" "later" etc. I feel almost as if he's going to take my money and run! Luckily, I've only paid him half ($1195) and keep telling him I will only pay him the rest when he says it's done and shipping. I don't want to throw good money after bad....

He's now told me it will "ship Nov. 30th" but refuses to put that into email because he says that "customer service costs extra." I kid you not. His words!
 
#16 · (Edited)
I bought mine several years ago, but I think it took around four months to receive. I think I order it around Jan/Feb in order to get it by spring. But there was a snafu. They shipped the wrong top to me. Luckily the freight driver advised me to check it out before he left. Come to find out SL had shipped two tops on the same day, and an employee slapped the wrong shipping labels on the boxes. Called SL and they acknowledge the mistake and I had the correct top within two weeks.

It sounds like you've been patient, but I'd be hesitant to give them too much grieve because I'd be thinking my attitude may affect the quality of the product. I'd say if you don't receive it on time this time that you consider canceling the order. The problem is there's no alternatives.

It's very hard for me to pay someone several hundred or thousands of dollars up front and HOPE they keep their word. Unfortunately, it's posts like this that makes it harder for me to want to trust small business's. I'd much rather order if I knew the product was already in stock. But I know that's small business may not have the money to keep one of everything they make in stock, so I don't know what the answer is.
 
#23 ·
Note that there are 2 "Saturn Sky Removeable Hardtops" listed on Amazon. Also note that both are listed by Smooth Industries, not Smooth Line. I suspect something is not quite right, and I would accept his statement that they don't sell on Amazon.

YMMV

:dunno:

.
 
#27 · (Edited)
Note that there are 2 "Saturn Sky Removeable Hardtops" listed on Amazon. Also note that both are listed by Smooth Industries, not Smooth Line. I suspect something is not quite right, and I would accept his statement that they don't sell on Amazon.

YMMV

<img src="http://www.twowheelforum.com/images/smilies/idk.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Dunno" class="inlineimg" />

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I looked a little more into this sale and sure enough it is in fact. Smootb line inc. Which is the official company name of smoothline. Check out the attachment I put in the post. Also, the location of the company is the same address of Smooth Line (Cheswick, pa). In addition Jack put his name down in a reply to the only feedback on Amazon for the.
 

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#29 ·
I recommend you ask for a full refund and move on with a different solution.

This type of transaction has been discussed many times over the years. It took nearly two years to get my car back from the powertrain conversion.

The people who get into the business of providing custom or semi-custom hand made parts for niche cars all tend to be of a similar personality type. They really believe what they tell you when they make promises. But life always gets in the way. Its what makes this type of transaction a challenge and sometimes maddening.

The big suppliers turn out hundreds or thousands of parts in big production runs. They have stock. You learn to expect nearly instant gratification when you buy from them

Our custom suppliers make things generally one at a time with their hands and a few tools. The process of hand building a custom part can take days or weeks or in some instances months to complete. While they are working on your part, they are finishing up all the other parts that were in process when you placed your order. Sure "nominal" production time for a top is 8 weeks, but that does not include executing one step, then going off to work on several other projects while that one step is curing or setting up or . . . Eventually they get done with the other projects and take the next step on YOUR project. This repeats.

Then they need cash to pay a bill so they work hard on getting a couple of projects done so they can ship and get the $$$

Your work waits on all the above for the next step, and the next step etc.

Again, when you talk with them, they WANT to make you happy. They BELIEVE what they are telling you when they tell you "next week for sure" but then someone else calls and complains. And they go work on THAT project until another order comes in or another person complains. . . .

Its how it generally always works.

If you really want the custom part, then your role is to pay money up front - cause many of the one man suppliers don't have cash on hand to buy materials - then wait. And wait. . . . its ok to call and chide them occasionally and as long as the chiding is in a positive, friendly manner, it may have a positive impact by keeping everyone's attention on your part.

If you are not ok with this process then you are on the wrong side of the cost / benefit equation and should cut your losses, make the decision that you are happier without the part and the wait. Or you can do like many of us have done and wait, and wait. With monthly phone calls to take the temperature.

To continue to have expectations that will not be met and be upset because of that is just painful to watch.
 
#30 ·
Well said, Rob. I'm glad you took the time to type it all out that way. Everyone on the buying side has been conditioned to expect immediate response when they buy, because, there's a number of those parts on the shelf, just waiting to be shipped, right?

The reality: we have a limited production automobile, with a very, very small aftermarket. We have a very limited group of suppliers, and that group is getting smaller as time goes by. Let's face it, just about every item out there offered by our limited vendor base is now custom made, to order, after the vendor has your money in hand.

Welcome to the current reality of owning a 12-13 year old car, which was marketed by a long-gone brand owned by a company that is still recovering from the bankruptcy of it's parent company. Be glad it was a parts bin car as there are some parts that are still readily available, but the list of unobtainable parts is growing daily.

:dunno:

.
 
#31 ·
Probably the strangest reactions. I CANT ask for all my money THEY get to keep $500 regardless.

You had a complete engine and tranny swap done in a way that hadnt been done before and you got frustrated in your posts on here regardless.

I get it now. I didn't know this was a vendor on here and now I do.

The funny thing is from your perspective if the vendor THINKS they can get your product to you by a date as they advertised then it doesn't matter that they actually take three four or five times that amount of time because they are allowed to have life happen.

In that same regard then from your perspectives if I paid then after 7 weeks life happened to me and I asked for all of my money back because I needed it then the vendor should automatically pay me back 100 percent?

Beyond that...looking at the BBB complaints as well as another consumer protection site smooth lime does this with every order...that includes mustang, corvettes not just niche cars.

I think it's important to communicate the way they do business on here so that folks searching for info about the company's practices and whether they should buy from them know what they are getting into.
 
#32 ·
I was going to wait to post this until I got the weather stripping on the top and could take really good pictures, but I'd rather make sure that I provide follow-up to my emails to make sure I'm negatively affecting anyone's desire to order.

So....First....It did (in my mind) take way longer than it should have (5 months) to get my top, but I did get it. The shippers were having issues because of the weather on the east coast so I drove directly to Pittsburgh (horrible drive in a saturn sky) 3 hours there and 3 hours back to get my top. Jack helped my wife an I put it on. It doesn't have the weather stripping on because I don't have a garage and can't get the temps up to 70 degrees for them to adhere. The weatherstripping should be on by Thursday though. Couple of things before I post pics.....

Jack is a super nice OLD dude who loves talking about cars which is awesome. I say the part about old because you don't know he is old on the phone, which is why I originally thought he was dense (obviously that is not the case). The other thing I wanted to point out...They have an issue explaining things. Yes they SELL the most hardtops in the world (which would make you believe it was a 20 man operation or something) but they only have like 4 people! If I would have known that I wouldn't have been so hard on them, but due to them saying they were the largest hardtop seller in the world you mistakenly think they are a pretty big operation (which they aren't). I suggested to Jack (who did acknowledge) that maybe they should change the 8 week date for completion since they probably won't make that anyway, and it would help alleviate some of the angst they get. Long story short, for having four people they put out a really good product in a relatively short people of time (I say that now knowing the actual size of the company).

I also really like the quality of my top, and think they did a good job! I'll have better pics later (these are cell phone pics) but wanted to show the look of the carbon fibre to people also...keep in mind my car never looks this bad but the damn turnpike was throwing salt everywhere....:
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#37 ·
Nice to see that you had a good experience with them. After a season of use, I'd rate my top a B+ overall. The fit is just imperfect enough to be noticable. Having said that, I'd buy it again, but next time I would do it with four months+ of lead time.
 
#39 ·
In the rear, when solidly attached to the front, the rear lip has a pretty large gap. I discussed it with the race fabricator I use and he said that over time the master molds these guys use tend to warp slightly. I wouldn't let it stop me from getting the top again since it looks great and serves my purposes perfectly.
 
#40 ·
That's really wierd. It took a little time for me to tighen down correctly, but initially when I put it on I had that gap you are talking about on the passenger back. Once I loosened the driver side then tightened the passenger side down it sealed properly then I tightened the driver's side and it sealed as well.

I do have a gap on the passender side window in the front where the top support ends for the weather stripping, but I'm going to add double sided 3 m body kit tape to it to get it to stick.
 
#42 ·
Chop Top....

Could you please take a couple of close up pictures of your top on the driver's side where the top's weatherstripping goes into your car's window weatherstripping? My garage screwed up the install and I'm forced to do it myself, but am having issues figuring out how hard I need to compress it in to get a seal.

Any help would be appreciated!!!!
 
#43 ·
I have had my Club Racer top for five years. I install it in late October and remove it in late April. It is GREAT for Colorado winters. Yes, I do drive my Solstice year round. I think the matching mean yellow top actually improves the appearance of my roadster. I receive way way more comments and questions when the top is installed. 99% are very positive. I waited three months for my top from Smoothline, and had a body shop do the prep and install. Not perfect, but good enough. It is the best mod I have made.
 
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