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You know the two plastic roof trims that go front to back on both sides of the car ?
I now have one roof trim.
The LH trim has often lifted up a few mm at the back every now and again.
I push it back down and maybe a month later it pops up again.
I was planning to mention this on the forum to see if it is a common problem.
Failing any feedback plan B was to use a bit of silicone sealer to hold it down.
Too late ! Two days ago driving back from work there was a very loud bang, which I first thought was something on the back seat falling on the floor.
Reaching home I noticed the trim was missing. I waited an hour or so until the traffic thinned out and went back to where I heard the bang. No luck finding the trim.
Strange thing to happen, I was driving at about 40kmh when I heard the bang. No other sign of damage anywhere to explain the loud bang.
There are 9 clips fitted to the body holding the trim. One photo shows a clip with two "ears". The other photo shows a clip with ears missing. It is about 50/50 out of the 9.
A mystery since the car was bought 3 years old with just 6,000km on the clock and no sign of damage or repair.
Why would those clips be so messed up ?
I checked the Jaguar X260 workshop manual. It is 12,700 pages and so far I have not found an index.
Need less to say, I have found no mention of the trim or the clips wherever they are.
How to fix ?
I can feel the clips are not glued down but I do not see how they are fixed to the body.
Anybody know if they are easy to buy and easy to fit ? At worst I would glue the next trim in place.
More of a problem is finding a trim piece. If available new are they pre-painted to suit ?
Very few X260s around in Australia so little chance of finding a 2nd hand one, especially in the right colour.
If anybody can see one in a wrecking yard please let me know. Ideally one painted metallic charcoal grey like my car.
Update:
Bought a left hand roof trim kit from JLR in Australia for about USD200. Surprised they had one in stock, not many XFs sold in Australia and it is not an item you expect much call for.
Bought a spray can kit, primer, colour and clearcoat for another USD60.
The trim piece is not the plastic moulding that I expected, it is an aluminium extrusion. Extrusion dies are much cheaper tooling than a moulding die for that trim piece.
On the other hand the extrusion, with a "made in Hungary" label, needs a lot of work to be ready for assembly. It has to be rolled, then bent, then notched in a number of places.
It would have been better to roll it to the correct radius for the roof line, but it was rolled to nearly twice the required radius making it into a bit of a spring. No idea why.
Nearly twice the radius needed
The photo shows the new trim just lying in place. That I think explains why my original trim sprang off with a bang after a couple of the 9 clips gave way.
I could not find the paint code sticker for the car on the left hand front door. That seemed odd. A very close look at the paint on that door showed the orange peel finish was slightly more pronounced than the rest of the car. The door had presumably been damaged and totally repainted and done to a high standard with no obvious sign of the work. There is no sign of damage or repaint anywhere else
There is no fitting instruction with the trim kit, and no mention of anything at all do do with the trim in the workshop manual. The clips have adhesive pads to hold them to the roof.
I made the mistake of fitting the 9 clips to the roof then trying to make the trim piece fit over the clips. I was stone cold sober before doing this and noted that there were no 45deg ramps on the clips to let the trim slip over and engage the clips.
So why did I stick the clips to the roof - hoping for a miracle the trim would fit over them ? Well, that did not work, it just ruined most of the clips so I bought more.
CORRECT FITTING OF ROOF TRIM.
It dawned that the plastic clips, which are quite flimsy, need inserting in the very small channels of the extrusion first. Do it carefully, it is very easy to break the tiny little tangs on the clip which engage the channels.
There are notches along the extrusion which act as detents to locate the 9 clips in the correct place. Then fit the two rubber extrusions to the aluminium extrusion, plus the plastic end pieces and two small rubber mouldings that tidy up the end of the rubber extrusions. The kit had two small squares of rubber foam which I did not use since I saw no place to put them.
Best to not remove the protective film from the adhesive pads on the clips yet. Trial fit the trim on the roof to make sure the clips are located correctly. Due to the excessive radius of the trim it helps to have a second person helping to hold the trim down while checking the clip location.
WARNING: You only get one chance to get this right. The clips stick like crazy to the roof but the plastic tangs are fragile, you cannot pull the trim off the clips without breakage.
If it looks correct, remove the protective film and locate the trim over the most forward clip. Have somebody holding up the rear end of the trim while you work your way back down the line of clips bedding down the trim.
I had trouble making sure the rubber extrusion on the inside edge of the trim piece was a snug fit, part of it just stays proud of the roof line.
It does seem to be an overly complicated arrangement for a purely cosmetic item to fill a gap in the roof line. Seeing there are stacks of other plastic items all over this car, all needing expensive tooling, why go for an aluminium extrusion ? Overall it does not look cheaper and I doubt it saves weight.
Update:
Bought a left hand roof trim kit from JLR in Australia for about USD200. Surprised they had one in stock, not many XFs sold in Australia and it is not an item you expect much call for.
Bought a spray can kit, primer, colour and clearcoat for another USD60.
The trim piece is not the plastic moulding that I expected, it is an aluminium extrusion. Extrusion dies are much cheaper tooling than a moulding die for that trim piece.
On the other hand the extrusion, with a "made in Hungary" label, needs a lot of work to be ready for assembly. It has to be rolled, then bent, then notched in a number of places.
It would have been better to roll it to the correct radius for the roof line, but it was rolled to nearly twice the required radius making it into a bit of a spring. No idea why.
Nearly twice the radius needed
The photo shows the new trim just lying in place. That I think explains why my original trim sprang off with a bang after a couple of the 9 clips gave way.
I could not find the paint code sticker for the car on the left hand front door. That seemed odd. A very close look at the paint on that door showed the orange peel finish was slightly more pronounced than the rest of the car. The door had presumably been damaged and totally repainted and done to a high standard with no obvious sign of the work. There is no sign of damage or repaint anywhere else
There is no fitting instruction with the trim kit, and no mention of anything at all do do with the trim in the workshop manual. The clips have adhesive pads to hold them to the roof.
I made the mistake of fitting the 9 clips to the roof then trying to make the trim piece fit over the clips. I was stone cold sober before doing this and noted that there were no 45deg ramps on the clips to let the trim slip over and engage the clips.
So why did I stick the clips to the roof - hoping for a miracle the trim would fit over them ? Well, that did not work, it just ruined most of the clips so I bought more.
CORRECT FITTING OF ROOF TRIM.
It dawned that the plastic clips, which are quite flimsy, need inserting in the very small channels of the extrusion first. Do it carefully, it is very easy to break the tiny little tangs on the clip which engage the channels.
There are notches along the extrusion which act as detents to locate the 9 clips in the correct place. Then fit the two rubber extrusions to the aluminium extrusion, plus the plastic end pieces and two small rubber mouldings that tidy up the end of the rubber extrusions. The kit had two small squares of rubber foam which I did not use since I saw no place to put them.
Best to not remove the protective film from the adhesive pads on the clips yet. Trial fit the trim on the roof to make sure the clips are located correctly. Due to the excessive radius of the trim it helps to have a second person helping to hold the trim down while checking the clip location.
WARNING: You only get one chance to get this right. The clips stick like crazy to the roof but the plastic tangs are fragile, you cannot pull the trim off the clips without breakage.
If it looks correct, remove the protective film and locate the trim over the most forward clip. Have somebody holding up the rear end of the trim while you work your way back down the line of clips bedding down the trim.
I had trouble making sure the rubber extrusion on the inside edge of the trim piece was a snug fit, part of it just stays proud of the roof line.
It does seem to be an overly complicated arrangement for a purely cosmetic item to fill a gap in the roof line. Seeing there are stacks of other plastic items all over this car, all needing expensive tooling, why go for an aluminium extrusion ? Overall it does not look cheaper and I doubt it saves weight.
My moulding came off as well and I am struggling to find the clips. Can you point me to the site you purchased them from?
Had the same problem recently, but I was lucky enough to find the trim in the ditch. Scraped, but not cracked. I plan to put a dab of sanitary silicone on the plastic mounts for the peace of mind
Lucky you, my trim was never found.
New ones not too expensive, but come with no info on how to fit it.
There is zero mention of the trim in the repair manual, almost as if it never existed.
I did fit mine but could not get part of the rubber extrusion to sit down tight.
It was about to happen again.
In my case the main provocateur is the sunroof movement. It puts some pressure against the roof trim rubber seals and if one is unlucky the plastic clips give up and we have a flying roof trim.
12-09-2022, 08:28 PM
BANG - roof trim gone
