Where do you recommend to buy headliner fabric?

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Dec 11, 2016
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While the car is waiting for a suitable donor vehicle to appear at the local junkyard for its differential, I'm going to replace the headliner. I have removed most of the attachment points and just need to remove the pillars to get the board out.

Do you have recommendations as to where to buy, or avoid, the foam backed fabric? The top local results include Joann or Hobby Lobby but I don't have any experience with them for these things. They're around $12-15/yard while a local small headliner replacement shop would sell their most common fabrics for about $30-40 per yard. I don't quite care if the pattern mimics the original as long as the color is close enough and it can stand high summer heat for ten years without separating from the foam.

What are your thoughts or recommendations? or if you have tips on doing this procedure. Thanks.
 

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I found the headliner material for my 05 GTO at www.headliner4cars.com
They carry tons of oem colors, materials, patterns, and supplies like ribs for old cars etc. GTO's are notoriously hard to find parts for because they areactually Australian and had a very limited run in the US. I highly recommend them for headliners.
 
05 XC90. The previous owner wasn't a car-person but he maintained it according to the (inadequate) factory maintenance schedule. This was a hand-me-down vehicle, otherwise I was looking for a 2011+ Touareg or 2012+ Impreza hatch; I want to switch to an automatic for daily driving. It's the 3rd car I've had with sagging headliners and they tend to fail at similar age between 14-16 years: 82 Citation, 93 Voyager, and now this. It didn't look as bad as it does in the picture because it was still attached to the body until I removed the attachments. My oldest car is 22, the headliner/foam becomes dust when you touch or look at it wrong but it's still hanging in there.

I found the headliner material for my 05 GTO at www.headliner4cars.com
They carry tons of oem colors, materials, patterns, and supplies like ribs for old cars etc. GTO's are notoriously hard to find parts for because they areactually Australian and had a very limited run in the US. I highly recommend them for headliners.
The nicest Pontiac that Holden made. I priced it out, it's similarly priced to my local headliner shop after accounting for $42 shipping, but now I know the type of fabric to buy (knit). Thank you!
 
If you're not picky, Joann?

I have a 2006 Volvo S40, must be something in those headliners, cause mine did it too. I removed my headliner and had it recovered by a local upholstery shop for $150 ish.
 
I changed the original failed headliner in my Caprice back in 1998. This replacement material had become terribly faded. Back in the days of automotive color, I could get material at the local fabric store. This time, I got it from https://www.yourautotrim.com/. They have quite a wide selection of colors and fast shipping. I found their brand of spray adhesive to be good as well. Even buying the color swatches, it took me two tries to get the closest match on an 80s deep maroon. The first material (against the faded headliner) took on the oddest 'fluorescent' cast at times. The picture really captured this characteristic.
I'll be installing the new headliner today, while the windshield is out for replacement. It is much easier than through the right front door.
 

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I finally got off my butt and fixed the car and then redid the headliner, sunroof, A and B pillars. The car wasn't driven because of the bad differential.

There was finally a suitable donor car at the salvage yard so I was able to replace the bad diff. Also re-did the oil pan with the appropriate anaerobic sealant which was good because I discovered that the oil pump seal was damaged from the last time I reinstalled it. Now I'm worried if I damaged the new seal this time without knowing. Even though I was extra careful it's still likely. Bad design to have the gasket groove on the top instead of on the oil pan itself.

For headliner, I decided to go with Joann because there was a local store nearby but they stopped carrying gray headliner fabric so I had to go with beige/tan. They don't carry the flat knit kind like the vehicle's original liner so I just went for the regular type. It turned out better than I expected. I used Permatex Headliner Adhesive. The new headliner's not perfect and there are permanent creases in a few spots because the fabric wasn't stretched well and the rattlecan adhesive sometimes sputtered creating too much glue in some parts.

All in all, not bad for about $80. 5 yards of headliner fabric and 3 cans of adhesive. 2 cans might have worked but the pillars took a lot more glue than expected and I messed up the first time on the sunroof.

At the end, I had an extra torx screw and a trim piece left over..... and I can't figure out where it's from. The part number yielded no results and I checked every door/hatch/sunroof seal.
 

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