Recovering You Car's Headliner and Pillars

Is your car's headliner sagging? Is it terribly dirty? Well here the solution for you! The following will show you how to recover your drab old headliner. I will not only be recovering, but changing my color from gray to black.

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Materials
I bought 6 yards of fabric - I opted for a "headliner material" which is foam backed
2 Cans of 3M 90 Spray on Adhesive (Do not go cheap on your adhesive)

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Cost
Headliner Material: 6 yds. @ $11/yd = $66 | 50% off coupon = $33
Adhesive: 2 @ $13/ea = $26

Considering I'm not using all of the material (only half of the headliner) -- lets say the total cost is no more than $50.

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Time

Headliner Removal: 45mins <-- never done it before
Removing old material and preparing: 60min
Recovering: 60min <-- a lot of wait time
Covering Pillars: 20min per set (3 sets)
Covering Sunroof Slide: 20min:
Installation: 30 min

So, this is a good weekend job - remove headliner on Friday (maybe prepare too). Recover on Saturday. Install on Sunday :)

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Warning
Some vehicles are equipped with curtain airbags located in the headliner itself. I don't know how the airbag deploys nor do I know if the headliner material will effect operation. Likewise for pillar mounted airbags. That is one system you don't want to screw around with. <-- Just like seat mounted airbags -- you're not putting seat covers over them right? :P

Step 1 Remove Headliner

This will vary from vehicle to vehicle... For my car (Mark IV Volkswagen Jetta/Golf) instructions can be found here: http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1312975

Comments

[Scanner2]

Kudos on a nice instructible! I did this once on a 78 Chrysler. First, I tried the needle and thread idea- it holds the liner up, but only where the thread actually is. So if you have lots of patience for threading (and your headliner is perforated already) and you don't mind a loose headliner when done, that will work. However the good Adhesive seems to give the best result. The foam backing on the material seems to be there for noise absorption.

[Crackersouth]

Just curious as to how old you VW is. Seems to be a lot of damage for supossably a well made vehicle. I'm in the process of using Dupli-color vinyl and fabric spray on my headliner for my 1962 Corvair. My headliner uses ribs and staples so it will be done in place. I will have to do a lot of masking and trim removal.

[trebuchet03]

It is from the year 2000....

The hot/humid climate of South Florida does a significant amount of wear and tear on this car's interior. In a related story - I had a pair of plastic bike fenders warp to the state of unusable inside the car on a particular day with hot summer sun. It slowly tears apart any vehicle that has anything more than bare plastic finishing.

I have since gone car-less.... My house mate, however, has a 2000 golf. The weather of Norther California has been much kinder.

[elephantsoup]

I am a professional auto upholstery tech. Nicely done. Hot civic ^^^ is correct about the glue, this is what I use. It can be applied with a 30$ paint gun. It is essentially sprayable contact cement, decking adhesive also works well provided you make sure you buy the sprayable variety. The other will leave a huge mess trust me.

As far as removing the old foam a scotchbrite pad works well. I will caution people that there are several types of hard headliner depending on vehicle make. Some are cardboard, others are pressed fiberglass. The fiberglass ones are easy to wreck. Use caution not to disrupt the outermost layer, it is semi-sealed and once you go past it will deteriorate easily and make u itch like crazy.

As far as alternate coverings go, I would say vinyl is too heavy for a spray can glue, but I have used vinyl and leather with professional glues no problem. A nice light alternative which is popular these days is faux suede.

[hot_civic03]

I would recommend to any one recovering their headliner to us "DAP weldwood landau top high heat resistant contact cement"   Yes the name is huge and so is the stick  especialy for vinyl my headliner is recovered in vinyl and it took two tries before i found this product and it has been great for 2 years now and i live in the desert where temps reach 120 in the summer.  the only problem with this product is it doesn't come off  so be carful and get your fabric on smooth the first time or you are in for a lot of work.   Good luck

[sprocketscientist]

 Nice instructable. Kudos that its also the only headliner instructable I could find.
I'm going to have to do this to my '95 Ford Escort. Hopefully I can figure out how to remove the headliner.

[nitsuaustin]

Do you think I could replace my headliner with vinyl?

[jmar10]

That is a great question to ask. I would really like to know if using a foam backed headliner is absolutely necessary or not. I am about to change my headliner out soon and prefer not to use the same foam backed material because it actually will deteriorate and cause problems again. I know that the deterioration of this foam is toxic.

If anyone has an opinion on this, please post it.

Thanks

[VampireXTC]

Did you strip the pillars before applying the vinyl? I've got everything out of mine and the headliner cloth was easy enough to remove but the pillars are pretty well glued. Just wondering if there were any suggestions. I'm thinking heat gun but would prefer something a little less drastic.

[jennifer05]

Thanks so much for the info I have been wanting to replace my vw golf headliner so bad. but i had one question how do i get the clips off near the viziors and the center panels that hold up the head liner?

[ehmbee]

Good instructable! I did this to my grandmother's Buick, as all 80s GM cars, it seems, suffer from sagging headliner fabric eventually-we managed to find some curtain panels at Big Lots for ten bucks that were the perfect size. Since it was her car, and an old one at that, we did not care too much about a match, so we used the curtain, which had a raised floral pattern. if you wanna get nuts, try some fabric you find for cheep. In the end it had a Victorian Steampunk look in a way.

[jettagli]

Hi me and my friend were just about to do this and was wondering you u bought your material? i have a Jetta and my friend got a GTI we have gray pillars and headiner i want mine to look like the black headliner on the 2004.5 gli so what material do i need and where can i find it. Please respond by sending me an email at [e-mail] Thanks

[carpespasm]

an easy quick fix i've seen used is to push put a pattern of those needles with the colored tips used to hold together clothing patterns.

[trebuchet03]

You'd be hard pressed to get a needle through that board :/ But if you're headliner allows that -- sweet :)

[matchbookhymnal]

This is a good total re-do. Definitely remove all the foam or your headliner will just come right back down again. If you need a quick fix to keep a headliner out of the way until you can re-glue, try using a thin, flexible strip of wood wedged between the plastic pieces above the doors. My grandpa used a piece of old molding for years this way.

[trebuchet03]

You can also use upholstery buttons and push through the entire board. Some OEM applications (I know the new Honda Accord and Nissan Altima) use them.