Newbie in need of info on alarm and top maint

[kurssat]

I recently aquired a very nice low mileage 2000 986. Unfortunately, the remotes do not lock/unlock the car nor do they enable/disable the alarm. I have already tried "waking up" or re-training the remotes to work with my car but I have been unsucessful. I called the dealer which is about 100mi away and they think I need new remotes.

I would like to diagnose the problem further before driving up to the dealer and blindly spending money on a new remote.

Is there a way to manually turn on the alarm system? Just using the key to lock the doors does activate the alarm on my car. I looked in the owners manual and there does not seem to be a way to manually arm and then turn off the system.

Can anyone out there help me?

Second question:
I have an origional soft top on my car. What should I use to treat the soft top to make it last longer and improve its water resistance?

My thanks in advance to those of you who are willing to help out a newbie!