Roof open a little more than an inch

Drivers side open, passenger side flush but can lift up an inch or so
A two day history:
-Two days ago, wife finished shopping, car wouldn't start. I drove over there and jumped her

-Constant double beeps every 10 seconds or so, didn't turn off even after 2 hours

-After reading other posts, I went out and started the car okay
- Cycled the top - it stopped three times during the "top down" process but completed the travel and I got the beep
- Pressed "Close", top starts going up, I heard a few unusual grinding sounds, a couple of "thunks", coming from the trunk area but the top kept closing only never completed the process

- Again, info from other posts (Thanks everyone!!! Your experience really helps) I took the Infiniti battery (less than 3 years old) to the dealer and yes, it was bad. Got a pro-rated price of $125 for a new one (Thanks for the price break Infiniti)

- Installed the battery, turned on the car and let it run for about 30 minutes, then tried the top:
- Nothing happened in the "Open" or "Close" mode
- No dash warnings
- No beeps
- Car moves in Drive or Reverse with no warnings

- One other thing, even with the top almost closed, the rear deck lid (package shelf, big flat black plastic piece) is laying flat on the trunk bed

I'm fairly electro-mechanical savvy but I can't figure out how to open things up without forcing something. Trunk is locked but I can unlock it and lift it up about 2 inches. I was a head mechanic in a bowling center and the machines I worked on would occasionally jam in such a way that the machine wouldn't move at all because at least two of the mechanisms weren't in the "home" position. CPU didn't know where everything was so it wouldn't let the machine turn on. Couldn't get the machine to move until you physically moved one or more mechanisms into the home position, then the CPU would let it run. Could this be the same situation?

Or, did the car forget it has a convertible top so it's not monitoring switches?

Sorry for the long-winded post, just trying to answer any questions in advance. Any questions or comments will be greatly appreciated!

Bruce

 

Hey Bruce - welcome to the forum.
I'll get this out of my system first - what's up with the bald tires?!!

Based on all of the details (nice write-up!), I'm thinking some parts of the system got held-up / misaligned and potentially damaged as the battery was not providing enough juice to run everything properly. This is very common with these cars so any time there is a hiccup, the first suggestion is to check battery charge / voltage.

Here is my best guess - the parcel shelf did not get properly tucked away, trunk lid got shut on top of the shelf and potentially damaged it and its moving parts. Which could also explain the trunk not fully closing - there might be something physically in the way.

Without forcing anything further, my suggestion would be to get Consult software and go step by step of open / close process - see where the disconnect is. I've never seen these tops getting fixed by forcing them one way or the other (although I completely understand the mechanism / cpu learning analogy).

 

Hey Kiseliok.

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate your suggestions. I'm getting the Consult 3 program. I have two of these 2009 G37 convertibles and if the top has messed up on one of them, I'm guessing it will probably crap out on the other one at some point as well.

Since I can't raise the trunk more that 2 inches before it jams, to see what's going on in there, I figure I have to go in thru the back seat. Looked at some rear seat removal videos on You Tube, seems simple enough.

Now my question for you, with the back seats removed, would you know if I can remove the metal seat back supports, giving me access to the trunk area?

I figure it will be a couple of days before my Consult program gets here...may as well put that time to good use. I took a week off work for this issue so now, because I have some time, my wife wants me to replace the wheel bearing in my BMW X5 so she can drive that instead. (I think she's starting to like it more than her G37)

By the way, the tires are just over 1 year old, with maybe 8K on them. Very gently used. The only stress they see is when she's coming home from work, usually with the top down, and she smokes a mustang or camaro that tried to outrun her. But she's polite...she gives them a casual wave "Goodbye" as she's leaving them in the dust!

 

Hmm.. Haven't tried to remove the back seats myself so not sure how much I can help here. I'm thinking that a lot of the trim and parcel shelf mechanism will likely need to be undone from inside the trunk though.
Also, the rollover bars are probably taking up quite a bit of space behind the seats so I don't know how much usable space you'll actually have here.
If you haven't found this site yet, it's a really good resource:
https://www.nicoclub.com/infiniti-service-manuals