Tonneau Hinge service bulletin

After driving my SSR home on Wedneday and having it sit in the garage overnight, I tried to drop the top and received the "Roof Cycle Timeout" error 10 times in a row. You would hear the two "pop" release sounds from the side holders, but after a small amount of upward movement (mainly on the passenger's side) there would be another "pop" sound and the "Roof Cycle Timeout" message would appear.

I demonstrated this behavior to the service manager this morning. It failed only once and then started working again. I found that after driving the SSR and then trying put the top up (or down) would result in another set of "Roof Cycle Timeouts" after the third "pop" sound.

I had enough of the problem and decided to look at the issue myself since the dealership clearly did not understand how to adjust this "creature" after having it for three days and working the GM tech line.

What I found was that when they tried to align the cover with the bed cover they never really adjusted the rubber stops on the driver's side correctly. There was absolutely no contact between the stops and the hinges/cover as they demonstrated to me there should be if adjusted correctly. I placed some white grease on the stops and found that neither of the driver's side stops were touching anything and I confirmed this further by being able to push on the cover when "fully seated" and it would still move down without much resistance (and still no contact with the stops).

I ended up having to adjust up the lower (larger) rubber stop on the driver's side by two full turns before there was any hint of contact with the hinge (like the passenger side had). The smaller rubber stop on the driver's side required 1.5 turns upward as well.

After making my adjustments, the "Roof Cycle Timeouts" have stopped and the lifting of the tonneau cover is smooth again. Let's see how it goes over the weekend. I explained what I found to the service manager and he agreed that it seems they were not adjusted correctly (which surprised him).

I did some more adjusting on Sunday. I found one of the cable runs on the passenger side to not be in the correct place because the holder (about mid way up on the back side of the storage compartment) was not snaped into place.

I also noticed the large rubber stop on the passenger side had a deep mark in it from the hinge/bracket. I put some white grease on it to see how deep it was going and it was really deep into it. I ended up backing off the rubber stop 1/2 turn and that's where no contact was made and then adjusted it 1/4 turn up (net change is 1/4 down) and that was where the same amount of contact was made as the driver's side stop.

Since that stopper change and cable placement, I've not had a roof cycle timeout occur. I've driven the SSR several times (that's what seemed to cause it before) and so far it's still working. If it goes a few more days without an error then I'll claim full success.

The GM (not SSR) specialist was out today to look at/work on my SSR.

They decided to leave the roof/tonneau cover/hinge adjustements as they were since the roof is not currently experiencing any "Roof Cycle Timeout" errors since the changes made on 8/3/04. They did fill the roof fluid tank above the "min" level it was sitting at.

The roof continues to operate correctly. I hope mine is finally back to where it was before the hinge change. The alignment isn't as good as before but since the changes on 8/3/04 it's much better than it was.

They also claimed to have fixed a rattle I have on the passenger side by the roof. Well, not quite. As soon as I drove the SSR off of the lot it started rattling again. I drove right back and took the service manager on a short test drive to demonstarte the "specialist's" failings. :cuss

At least my roof is working.