Why do Jaguar headliners go bad after 5 years? Both of my XJ headliners started sagging in numerous places after 5 or so years. None of my American cars have had this problem in all my cars. The Jag dealer wants $450 to repair. It seems like an engineering/design/manufacturing problem. Is this a normal occurrence for modern day Jags? Any solutions, other than furniture doily tacks?

 

Quarter inch staples, much better than dolly tacks and hardly noticeable . . .

 

Headliner is relatively easy to take out (tutorial is available on the web). Once out, any upholstery shop would recover it in the material of your choice for cheap (100-150 in my area). I wanted to do mine in leather, but they told me in the shop that leather is too heavy, and won't stay up very long.

 

It's the foam they used to back the fabric. It's not the glue that's letting go, just the foam breaking down. Don't know what they were using during that time period, but it sucked.

I re-covered the headliner in my car myself. It wasn't too hard at all. At the very least, it isn't too hard to remove from the car so you can take it to an upholstery shop, where as said before they'll re-cover it for $100-$150. Just make sure they leave some material around the sunroof hole, as you have to glue the fabric to the frame of the sunroof to hold it up there.

 

Hi,

I have the same issue with my '98 XJ8. I took some wooden strips and tucked them into the side. the strips are longer than the car is wide. The strips "stand" between the side liners and keep the headliner up.

Looks quite nice too!

ALTERNATIVELY: You could buy a new headliner at jaguarheadlinings.com. They charge GBP160 (approx $265) for a new headliner. Shipping might be an issue...

Good luck,

Leo

 

im with jhartz on this one. i have no answer to this. my 85 xj6 also had the same problem. Is it an engineering flaw? probably. I use upholstery twist pins to effect a good repair.There are other things i would rather spend 450 on. good luck

 

THIS^ It's not exclusive to Jaguar either. Pretty much every brand that uses this type of foam backed fabric has the same issue after a decade or so, worse in hot climates it seems.
It's a fairly straight forward DIY job that requires more patience than skill. I've done several and the results were good if not equal to a pro.

 

Hi
Before the JAG i own for about 10 years an E32 BMW, the bimmer has the same problem.
A solution for this issue after you fix the headliner is to never but never wash the car in the summer time if the car is very hot. When you put water on top of the car a heat shock is made and the glue is affected also the sponge between fabric and wood headliner support suffer.