Mark and I live near each other. The standard quote from our dealer sight unseen is 2k, as they have seen so many of them.

He replaced the cables and push rods. About $140 in parts if you buy them from Sunset in Oregon.

I guess the mechanic lied to me about the V lever, he said it comes with the motor only. Little did he know that when he gave me the list of parts needed to fix the top, the V levers are listed seperately.

Hey I wanted to mention with this thread that when I had purchased my 2000 986 the dealership gave me two keys to the car that were programmed. I suppose this is normal. However, after taking delivery of the car and looking in the center console I found 2 more keys that were there. Neither of them worked for my car. THey fit in the ignition but since they are not programmed will not start the car. I still have these two keys. I want to keep one of them incase something ever happens, but would be interested in letting one go cheap. The key is brand new. I will locate it this weekend and take a snapshot of it. If someone is interested send me a messege and we can discuss the aquisition.

You should have 3 keys. Look in your owners manual. If you have the remote option on the base or standard on the S then there are 2 remote keys and 1 valet key.

If you have new extra remote key(s) you need to get the paper tag that looks like a bar code.

Thats cool jfmillr. I'll be interested in it f you have the tag with it.

yeah they both have their paper tags still with them. I never got the valet key. I have 2 programmed remotes and 2 unprogrammed remotes.

The remotes from a 1998-2000 will not work on a 1997.

Tool Pants, have you guys filmed a top fix? It would be great to release it on the next dvd. I'm going to start working on my top next week and I'm a little worried about the timinng issue. When I tried putting the top down the other day ( I knew it wouldn't come down becuase it's broken) only the back coloumn came up. When I tried putting it down, the trans. just kept turning until the V lever broke. It just kept turning until it snapped. Was this a timing issue that caused it to break? I just bought new ones and I don't want to break those too.

A separate section for top problems has been created. http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showforum=46 Mark is the timining guy. No DVD as we have not found a local owner yet with a really messed up top.