Originally Posted by TTechnology

Hi, everyone. I've been gone for awhile, but I'm back again. Hope all of you are well.

I know that there are many of us who have been looking for the Audi Hardtop for the TT Roadster. I've been looking for a reputable source for the past year or so. It seems that every time we found someone in the US who was willing to sell the top that they'd flake pretty soon. So, if any of you are looking, I think I've found a repeatable source for the hardtop and mounting parts.

I was referred to this company indirectly by Audi Switzerland, after a round about conversation with some dealers over the internet. Mine arrived yesterday, so it may be a bit premature to claim victory since I've not installed it yet. But I think everything is there. And they seem very professional and eager to serve the customer.

The distributor is in Switzerland, and based on their web site seems to be a parts house for a lot of different car lines. The freight, however, is a little high as it must come from
inland Europe.

I'll admit that this is not as simple as going to your local dealer to pick up the part, but it's not too bad. If you want one I can supply the e-mail address of the distributor. I won't put it here in the interest of not being a sales pitch and not wanting to get Audi upset with the distributor. If you are interested, e-mail me.

Anyway, here's what I finally found and how it worked for me:

Hardtop, mounting kit: 3,900 CHF $2,808.50
Air Freight to LAX: 988 CHF 711.49
Packing: 82 CHF 59.04
-------------------------------------------------
Total 4,970 CHF $3,579.03

The steps:

First, the distributor wants payment wired to their Bank in Swiss Francs, which runs about $40 at most banks. Exchange adds about $100 to the price, depending on the financial institution you use.

The hardtop required is:
8N7 817 107 Y3C - Amulet Red
8N7 817 107 Y6S - Talisman Green
8N7 817 107 Y7W - Lake Silver
8N7 817 107 Y9B - Brilliant Black
8N7 817 107 Y1Z - Imola Yellow
8N7 817 107 Y9F - Bright White
8N7 817 107 Z9V - Raven Black
8N7 817 107 V5J - Moral Blue Pearl
8N7 817 107 Z6W - Green Pearl
8N7 817 107 27X - Nimbus Gray
8N7 817 107 Z9W - Ebony Black Pearl

Mounting parts required are:
To chassis number 8N-1-025600 with Hydraulic - 8N7 898 107
To chassis number 8N-1-025600 with Manual - 8N7 898 107 A
From chassis number 8N-1-025600 with Hydraulic - 8N7 898 107 B
From chassis number 8N-1-025600 with Manual - 8N7 898 107 C

For vehicles 2002 and prior, without the mounting border (black trim on the deck behind the cockpit): 8N7 853 607

Ordering is relatively easy, and the turnaround time was surprisingly quick. I wired the money last Tuesday afternoon, the top was shipped Friday, and arrived at LAX yesterday. So the whole process took less than a week.

The only real pain in the process was picking it up. As you are importing the top from Swizerland, you have to clear customs. That means that the pickup process takes a bit of time. You can have a customs broker do this for you, but I thought it would be a bit of an adventure, so I did it myself. Thus, I don't know what the cost would be to hire a customs broker.

The steps to clear customs are actually pretty simple. Most of it is time:
a) First, you go to the Airline cargo office and pick up the airbill.
b) Then you go to Customs and stand in line. This is actually pretty entertaining because the Customs Agents are not used to dealing with private citizens and they've not seen an item like this often. At first, they wanted me to use a Customs Broker, but they finally gave in when they realized this was a private purchase for myself and that I was not in the car business. The result was that I paid 2.5% in import duty, plus a fee of some sort (by check or cash)- about $76 - and spent about 30-45 minutes at the Customs office.
c) Then you go back to the Airline cargo office, pay their import charge - about $20 - and pick up the item.

Total cost:
$3,579.03 to the distributor
40.00 wire fee
100.00 currency exchange
76.00 duty and fees
20.00 import fee
=========
$3,815.03

Mounting instructions can be found at:
http://www.tt-eifel.de/hardtop/hardtop.html
Use Google or Altavista Babel Fish to translate.

Or download the PDF I created for myself at:
http://www.ttechnology.net/download/hardtop.pdf

This is not for everyone, but if you are interested, send me an e-mail, and I'll send you the distributor's info. Good luck!