Are sagging headliners a thing of the past?

Many of the headliners have kind of a hard cardboard backing. Do not crease it because it will not go away. This happened to me once when I removed a headliner from an Astro van to do a dented repair. Many headliners are really hard now.
 
2007 Jetta had deteriorating foam backing and shrinking cloth cover in 7 years. It's the cardboard backed foam/synthetic cloth type. Not a hard life in the DC area compared to other places.
PS There was no gluing it back on with the 3M sprays. The foam won't hold.
 
Headliner is just a thin outer material fused to a foam sheet which is glued to a backer board which gets attached to the roof. After 10 or 15 years, the foam deteriorates and lets the material fall off. When this starts depends om many factors. Color of the roof, geographical location, garage kept or not, driving with the windows open, etc. Just replaced the headliner in this 16 year old white Jetta.

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Nope. Unless you think 2005 is the past. This is late model to me compared to my 84 Cutlass and 83 Caprice I used to have. Every vehicle I've owned had a saggy headliner. If that's the worst issue I have to deal with besides rust, I'm happy.
 

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Many of the headliners have kind of a hard cardboard backing. Do not crease it because it will not go away. This happened to me once when I removed a headliner from an Astro van to do a dented repair. Many headliners are really hard now.
Yup, I had a collision shop crease a headliner on a ‘14 Fusion re-installing it and the crease never went away. Average car on the road is a 2009 right now so yes, 04-05 cars that people are calling modern are old. I live in one of the hottest sunscorched cities in the US. People with 2 year old leased cars have roasted their clear coat and plastics. Yet I don’t think I’ve seen a modern car with a droopy headliner they don’t make em like they used to and thank god for that.
 
I've never owned a sagger, even though I usually park outside. The most saggy headliners I've encountered in friends' vehicles were in a 70s Toyota Corona, and an '88 Jeep Cherokee (which is still in use, incidentally). Another friend repaired the Corona crudely but effectively using a stapler.
 
VW has never done well in this regard - the 5th generation Jetta/Golf was particularly bad. I had the headliner replaced under warranty in my '06 Jetta because it was starting to delaminate after 3 years in Florida, colleague of mine had an '06 Jetta as well and her headliner was just completely loose and this was after ~5 years in Florida heat.

My departed '12 Sportwagen had the headliner replaced due to sunroof water leaks but before that it was starting to delaminate around the grab handles. Our '11 Sportwagen had its headliner replaced due to sunroof water leaks but it also was starting to delaminate around the grab handles. The leatherette on the door armrests in the '11 are fully delaminated as well. We shall see how my '16 Golf does - no sunroof so no leak potential to get the dang thing wet.
 
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