I have a 2003 garage kept s type 70000 miles. Looks new. So far suspension squeaks and dashboard squeaks were all I had to deal with.
Last night I was driving with windows open and noticed that the back 1/3 of the headliner and the headliner under the visors has come loose from the board under. I understand the concept of removing all trim, lights , handles etc to get headliner loose, but how do you get whole piece out of car without breaking hardboard backing? No holes in fabric , so I assume I can just reglue what has come loose and reinstall?????

Thanks

 

You are not going to like this answer. According to alldatadiy the windshield (windscreen) needs to be removed and the headliner removed that way.

I don't have my wifes S type here at present, but maybe if you took out the front seats you might have wiggle room that way. I have removed the front seats and its pretty easy, 5 bolts and a couple wiring connections. Besure to disconnect battery for atleast 40 minutes if not longer to disperse power to the air bag seat sensors!

 

Headliner fabric is bonded to a foam backing which is adhered to the hardboard. What you are witnessing is failure of the bond between the fabric and the foam. You will need to purchase new headliner material. Just gluing the fabric to the foam will result in a hard and discolored headliner. Before going to all the trouble of removing headliner, try gluing an old T-shirt of roughly the same color to the wall, to see if you are happy with the result.

Good news....headliner fabric is cheap, and color-match is reportedly not that difficult:

Automotive Headlining: Cloth & Vinyl Fabrics

I was too much of a wuss to tackle my daughter's 03 S-type so we made her deal with it until $400+ could be scraped together for JagMac Jaguar (Not a Dealer) in Irving to fix it. I'm still trying to earn my "Man-card" back for that one. Near as I can reckon, material and adhesive comes to somewhere between $50 - $75 max. Total bill was $475 against a lesser expectation, but we did have a discoloration on the driver's armrest corrected, not sure if by cleaning or by re-dye. I know nothing we tried would clean it off. 2 yrs later and the headliner "rattles" - the sound is similar to adhesive (or tape) breaking contact...but headliner material is definitely not coming loose from board...more like the board-to-roof movement.

The XJ headliner is alleged to come out the left side rear door, like that other mythical substance that will "stretch a mile before it tears an inch" the board will fold and buckle enough to get out the door but return to shape nicely upon re-installation, so they say. I am reasonably certain the lads at JagMac did not remove the windshield to repair my baby's....even so I don't begin to doubt that is the prescribed procedure. Anything that happens with the regularity of sagging Jag headliners has a way of precipitating shortcuts in the marketplace. Somewhere out there, there must be a thread on the S-type similar to this one:

1998 Jaguar XJ8 headliner removal, recovering and replacement instructions.

If not....find out where Joyce is with her Jag, sneak into it and pull a bit here and there at the headliner......and within 3.2 hours or less Rick will have a tutorial up complete with picks right here in the S-type forum!!!

 

I don't doubt it.

Good advice also.

 

I read JTIS, It also says to remove windshield, I was just hoping that they were wrong.

 

hee hee, Joyces Jag isn't suffering from the saggy headliner but the drivers sun visor material is starting to "wrinkle". I haven't figured out a way to unseam it, reglue and reseam it.

 

I find it hard to beleive that it wouldn't come out the door with the seats out.

There's no harm in trying, if the old one won't come out the door you can just put the seats back and arrange to have the window taken out somwhere.

Sounds easy doesn't it?

 

Mine was just coming loose at back so I thought I might just loosen back trim drop and spray glue in. Then I saw the old dried up flaky backing all over. I decided patch job probably won't hold. I guess I will try to remove it through rear door. I can't stand the thought of removing windshield.

 

If you can get a good deal, I've seen $200 I'm sure from certain guys here to get the headliner replaced, it might be worth it?

Don't know about where you are, but over here we have a thing called windscreen replacement in our insurance policies that don't affect NCB and ask for a minimal £50 fee towards replacement iirc.

I'm wondering what are the chances that your screen is pitted etc and how long your headliner may hold up - against any possible damage to your windscreen that may require replacement through the above method?

Just a thought

 

I didn't think things through well enough. I have a friend that has an auto glass biz. I bet he would let me come down on a Friday and pull windshield and let me remove headliner, replace fabric and put it back in Monday AM. This will work.
I of course was still hoping that it would come out through back door. I am sure that I would break backing on headliner trying that. I love this car. I wish service issues did not take up all of my waking thoughts.

 

Driving with the moonroof open, especially at highway speeds, is a leading cause of eventual headliner failure on just about any car. The edge of the headliner is constantly exposed to high wind speeds, and over time that takes its toll on the glue. I know it may be hard to resist on beautiful autumn days, but if you'll keep your moonroof closed, in most cases your headliner attachment system will last the life of the car....

 

Please elaborate on how that is possible, and where the data was found. I have never heard of that... and every car that I have dealt with that had failed adhesive / foam did not have a sunroof or moon roof of any kind... 5 so far...

 

I think Jon proposes a worthwhile premise, but, like Jeff, my experiential data do not support it.

Funny, also 5 failures for me, maybe that's the limit?

I have 3 failures with solid roofs: 2 GM and 1 Ford, and 2 failures with sun/moon roofs: 2 Jaguar (of the Ford era - 95 and 03). In all 5 cases, the failure has been within the fabric, ie. the bond between the foam and the "class A" surface or "show-fabric" has failed rather than the bond between the headliner material and the board. (Hard to say, but in 1 or 2 of my cases...the bond may have survived but the foam broke down resulting in separation) 4 of my 5 events(including both open-top models) began over the back seat rather than at the leading edge of the liner just aft of the sunroof. The oddball is my Merc. GrMqs which I'm cheating a bit on....same material but the failure is not in the headliner but the generous rear-window surround.

Given what I have observed, I could achieve "buy-in" on wind-buffet being a contributive cause, but more likely due to driving with windows down rather than with roof open. It is clear, once it starts...any buffeting by wind (or worse...picking at by kids) will propagate the failure across the entire headliner quite rapidly.

Don't forget the pop-up wind deflector when you open the roof! I really don't get any turbulence through the sunroof unless it is a very windy day with gusts. But if you reach up and hold the deflector down, you will get a pronounced resonance noise. Haven't really "felt" it though.

I vote the root cause is heat!

 

Several conversations during the past 15 years or so with the owner of my favorite auto interiors and convertible tops shop in Raleigh have revolved around this subject. He's been in the business for more than 35 years, has a staff of magicians who can restore any vehicle, and has seen more than his share of failed headliners that he attributes primarily to wind buffeting and secondarily to heat. Wind deflectors help somewhat but do not prevent the issue entirely. Water intrusion from a moonroof leak (think clogged moonroof drains for an extended period of time) can also contribute to glue and/or materials breakdown. Some makes and models are more susceptible to headliner failure than others. He does not see as many headliner failures today as he did from the late 70s through the 80s, and attributes that statistic to better design and improved glues....

He convinced me more than a decade ago to keep all of our moonroofs closed as much as possible when the vehicle is moving. We've done that. Since then, zero headliner glitches across at least ten vehicles with moonroofs (Acura, Dodge, multiple Jeeps, multiple Lexus, Chevrolet, and the S-Type)....

 

Interesting take I guess and all ideas welcome to try to get to the root of the issue.

Like many other UK owners here though, I don't think I can think of a single example where I've saw the headliner sagging in almost any car from any era, here in the UK. Of course we rarely get any high / extremely high temps here, may 30 degrees once in a while so heat gets my vote as the root cause of this problem.

It'd be really interesting for more UK owners to drop by this subject and post their bviews on it.

But, ask yourself this, how many posts of this type have YOU seen from UK members?

 

Never seen it on a UK car. (Doesn't mean it doesn't happen LOL)

Don't recall any posts about it on the UK forum. (Same comment.)

Heat? What's that.....

 

Jon! You're cheating if you are counting "REAL" Jeeps in the population of vehicles that have not had headliner failures! That's padding the numbers
In my line of work, we'd say that "headliner failure" was "designed out" of those....

Don't think this failure was much of a problem back when motorcars had roof-bows, either, but not sure...don't recall Dad's '56 Buick Special having headliner failure...

 

Zane,

The Jeeps referred to above were all Grand Cherokees....

 

Lol, figured as much, just ribbing you.

 

I've seen this on a lot of GM cars. Without sunroofs BTW. There used to be an uphosterer with the same last name as mine local. I got lots of calls wanting to know if I could fix headliners.

The ones I saw didn't look like an adhesive failure. It was more like the foam backing itself had broken down. I suspect heat and age. I gets pretty hot in a closed car in the sun. The headliner being at the top and attached to the roof would be exposed to very high temperatures.