Like many of you, my car is 17 years old and although the interior is in remarkable condition overall the headlining has always let it down a little as it had begun to delaminate and sag in places. As a result there were several very obvious 'droops' above the rear seats near the grab handles and the areas around the sunvisors and sunroof were also baggy. Over and above this the sunroof liner was a bit baggy and there was an unsightly gouge out of the drivers side inner door seal trim. I had hoped to document the process as a step-by-step photo guide but confess I remembered only once I had already removed the old headliner. Sorry!
Anyway, I purchased a new hedliner, fixings and door seal trim from the dealer and set to work:
To remove the existing headliner you must carefully remove all the ancillary fixings such as the sunvisors, clips, vanity lights, grab handles etc. It is also useful to at least partially unclip the A, B and C pillar trims. Just go slowly to avoid breaking the fragile securing clips on these parts and carefully store each screw and fastener removed!
I also fully retraced the sunroof as I wsa removing the sunroof liner too but this also made it easier to see where to unclip the old headliner around this area with a series of metal clamps which can be pushed out.
Old saggy headliner removed:
Bare roof:
The new headliner supplied by BMW has almost all the necessary holes pre-cut, however if you have the vanity lights under the visors the rectangular holes must be cut for these by hand before you install the new liner in the car. Helpfully, the reverse (non cloth) side of the headliner has the shape marked out so you can carefully cut as necessary with a sharp Stanley knife. I would caution that cutting slightly smaller than the outline is best as these need to be a tight rather than slack fit and it would be awful to have the vanity lights rattling around in your new headliner when you put it all back together!!
Note the 3 square plastic clips along the rear window line - these slide into 3 brackets on the rear of the headliner and are pushed into spring clips in the roof to secure. Very important to remember and order 3 new ones as they tend to get damaged removing the old headlining:
To get the old headlining out and the new one in safely the best option is to remove the rear seat cushion, recline the front seats fully, then adjust the front seats to their rearmost position and you can easily angle the headlining panel in at an angle through an open rear door (you can also just make out the 3 brackets across the back of the headliner that I mentioned):
Once installed you need to attach the metal clamps around the sunroof apeture on the new headliner - again it's best to buy an ample amount in case you break/lose one or more and I'd recommend 20 or so. These clip onto a pre-fitted metal bracket around the sunroof apeture of the headlinder and then secure this along a corresponding metal bracket around the roof. Makes more sense when you see it perhaps in the absence of good pics here. You can see the bracket around the apeture in this picture:
These are some of the clips & clamps you need:
Once the headliner is secured front and rear with the clips the remaining parts that were removed serve to secure it firmly such as the sunvisors, clips, vanity lights, grab handles etc. You can see here the finished result and it looks so much better:
I finished the job off by fitting the new driver side door seal. This was a pain to do as the new seal is a very very tight fit, especially around the corners of the door frame. I recommend heating it with a hairdryer or similar as you go and it makes life a lot easier. The finished result is a nice fresh door trim felt in the cabin:
I also splashed out on a new sunroof motor cover panel as they are about £15.00 and compliment the new headlining nicely:
Overall I am very happy with the job and am just waiting for the sunroof liner to be recovered by a trimmer as BMW now longer supply these. Again, it has delaminated a to a degree and the original glue is not holding up. Once this is done the interior will be a lot fresher and more befitting the car.
I would definitely recommend this as a DIY job as various quotes ranged from £400 for a retrim of the exisiting headliner with no guarantee of a colour match to the A & C pillars etc or £200 just to fit the new BMW headliner. If you have the parts, fixings and a helping hand it can be done in around 4 hours. Total cost about £230.00.
Parts used:
51 44 8 126 463 - Headliner Silbergrau Sunroof Option
51 44 8 126 472 - Motor Cover Silbergrau
54 21 8 195 800 - Clip x 3
51 43 7 194 187 - Clip x 3
51 44 1 957 623 - Bracket x 3 (essential)
51 44 8 181 426 - Clamp x 8
51 44 1 938 868 - Clamp x 20 (essential)
Hope this is of interest/use to some of you. Feel free to ask any questions about the procedure and I'll do my best to help.
Duncan
Linear Mode
