Dealing With A Sagging Or Damaged Headliner In Your Vehicle
The headliner in your vehicle is designed to line the inside of your vehicle's roof, keeping it quieter inside. The headliner also has an insulating effect that can be critical in the wintertime. If you have a headliner with damage, you may need a vehicle headliner repair service to replace it for you.
Headliner Construction
The headliner in most vehicles is made with a thin piece of cardboard or plastic material that is flexible enough to contour to the car's roof. A piece of fabric matching the vehicle's interior is glued to the backing material, and in many cases, some foam is also added to help reduce noise inside and help insulate the roof.
Damage to the headliner can happen in many ways. Some common issues involve cuts in the fabric from large items loaded into the vehicle or the separation of the headliner from the backing material. Replacing the headliner is challenging in most cars, so having a vehicle headliner repair service do the work for you is typically the best option.
Replacing The Headliner
Removing the headliner from the vehicle often requires many parts of the trim to be removed, and some of them require specific tools to remove clips and pins holding them in place. Forcing the trim off with the wrong tools can break the retaining clips or pins, and the trim will not be tight when put back on unless those parts are replaced.
Once the trim is out, the vehicle headliner repair service will remove any lights on the roof, sun visors, and retaining hardware on the headliner. The entire headliner can then be pulled down and removed from the vehicle in one piece.
If the vehicle headliner repair service is installing a new headliner for you, they can place the new one in the vehicle and reverse the process. However, if they are repairing the original headliner, which may be the case in a classic car, they will have to remove the original fabric carefully to reuse it if it is not damaged. If the material is damaged, the repair service will need to find a cloth close to the original to replace it with.
Once the new fabric is installed on the backing board, the headliner assembly can be reinstalled in the vehicle and all the trim put back in place. In most cases, swapping the original headliner for a new one can be completed in a few hours, but if you have the old headliner recovered, the process can take several days or more. If the repair service has to wait for fabric, it could be longer, and they will also need time to remove the old foam from the backing board to spray the new foam on.
Once complete, the headliner will look new and should last for many years.
Contact an auto shop to learn more about vehicle headliner repair.