Mine is starting to make grinding noises and was only going up about 6 inches. I lubricated the heck out of it and let it run up and down several times and it's much better, but it still seems to go up less than my old XJ6 AFAIR, but now I'm not sure.

So, I measured it: 23 inches from the fender. Is this normal or should it go up more?

 

39 inches.

 

Hmm, it does look like one of the pieces of my antennae is jammed into the next one. It's getting too cold to do much auto repairs though. If it jams altogether I"ll have to fix it but I'll probably leave it as is till the spring. Snow predicted for tomorrow!