Review all slides before starting work. It’s best to wear some sort of latex gloves, as the black wrapping on the electrical wiring harnesses in the roof is quite sticky and will absolutely ruin your new headliner. Change the gloves often.
These are not step by step instructions, they are only graphic aides to help you foresee trouble areas and avoid pitfalls.
I purchased my headliner and clips from Dave Belknap at Gault Auto Sport. He had the best price and delivery off all the internet stores and BMW dealers. (800) 428-1390
1. Remove all interior hardware from the headliner
- Sun visors
- Grab handles
- Sunroof motor cover
- Vanity lights behind the sun visors
- Coat hanger hooks
2. Remove the weather stripping from each side of the car, from the very back of the back side windows to the very front of the car. Each one is one contiguous piece, so once you get one of the ends loose, just pull it off. I think it’s best to start at the front and pull towards the rear
3. Pull back the A & C pillar moldings. Look at slide 8 to see the passenger side A pillar molding pulled away. You do not have to remove them, just pull the top part away from its mounting points to facilitate headliner removal.
4. Open the sun roof all the way and remove the four black torx screws that fasten the right and left black painted metal tracks to the car. You can see them as you’re standing outside the car looking into the sun roof cavity. Slide 9 shows them already removed. You’ll get the three most forward screws easily enough, but the rear most screw will take a bit of work as you contort your small screwdriver somewhat under the sunroof panel and just engage enough of the torx driver into the screw head to turn it loose, Careful here, you don’t want to ruin the sunroof weather stripping.
5. Once these tracks are removed, you’ll see the brass colored clips through the rectangular holes (slide 9) and can use a small flat bladed screwdriver to “unsnap” them. The headliner will pop down a bit more with each clip you unsnap. There are a total of 14. Don’t be surprised if some are already broken and have some on hand as you’ll break a few yourself (one way or another). It’s best to simply plan on replacing them all.
6. Once you’ve got all 14 unsnapped, the only thing holding the headliner up will be the rear lip just above the rear window and maybe the rear view mirror.
7. Go get another person to help you at this point. It’s really light duty work but is better suited for two people due to the size of the headliner. Push the headliner backwards towards the back of the car which will disconnect it from the rear lip. Pull the rear of it downward until you see that it is free and clear of the rear lip.
8. Now, without bending or otherwise damaging the A & C pillar moldings, finagle the headliner out of the car. It’s pretty easy.
9. Now it’s time to carefully inspect the clips to see how many are broken or are ready to break. Play it safe and order a handful before attempting to install the new headliner.
10. Inspect the inside roof of the car to be sure the water channels are secure, no signs of every having any leaks, the wiring looks ok, etc,etc,etc.
11. Install the new headliner in reverse order. Be sure to make the proper cut outs for the grab handle, rear coat hanger hooks and the semicircular cutout for the rear view mirror in the new headliner before installing it.
