As some of you may know, I recently purchased a 14 xkrs. The car has the black interior with the leather headliner. After taking delivery (shipped to me and never seen in person until delivery day) the 1st thing i noticed was the headliner looked like it was doing its best impression of a parachute. It is dropped directly over the driver and passenger seats. After doing a bunch of research and making numerous phone calls i have determined that it is damn near impossible to fix this problem. Does anyone have experience with this issue? Any idea of what i should pay for replacement? Any help is appreciated.

 

Subscribed in case this happens on mine.

 

Forum member tberg is the headliner guru. This is a common problem with a variety of solutions. Search this Forum for "headliner". Here are a few threads:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/w...d.php?t=204416

 

I wonder if the fix is the same in the XKR-S, since we have leather headliners.

 

thanks. Will spend some time intihe old thread vault.

 

I believe the headliner has to be replaced in its entirety. Mine is still ok but my A pillars have some looseness. Not worrying at this time. I found a reputable place in West Palm Beach who worked on a member’s car that was satisfactory.

 

The leather is heavier than the Alcantara suede of lesser XK/XKRs, however, I have temporarily fixed my suede headliner by taking a syringe, filling it with a fabric adhesive, and pushing through the suede about every six to eight inches. Once you've poked through and pushed a bit of adhesive out, hold the leather or suede against the roof for about 30 seconds. It will at least get the headliner off your head, and really in the dark warm charcoal, you don't notice it unless your really look hard at it. The alternative is to pull it all down, clean all of the old foam off the roof, and reglue. You can probably use the existing headliner making sure to clean the old adhesive and the crumbled foam off of the leather.

 

Purchased a 2013 XK ,30k miles, had the issue prior to taking delivery. The dealer had Albo Restoration Services in Mundelein, IL. do the repair.
Albo replaced the headliner and I believe it cost around 1000.00.
It is not the leather headliner.

 

I would have thought that leather is far easier to repair, purely as it wont allow seepage of any adhesive through, so would have thought it is totally within the realms of DIY.

As I've mentioned on a couple of other similar threads I think the british leather realy can't deal with the high temps some of you in NA have to put up with. Say this as am not aware of anyone on this side of the lond that has had issues with x150 dash or headliners. Our hides are also cinsiderably thicker, I assume as the cattle have to deal with cooler temps...esp in Scotland

 

Same thing happened to my XKR-S. The leather shrinks, separates and falls off. I took out the headliner which takes about 1-1/2 hours first time being very careful and figuring out how things come apart and I had it recovered in Black Alcantara like suede. Takes about 45 minutes to put it back together. The job cost $80.00 including the material.

 

Wow. Thanks guys for all the help. I live in the atlanta area and cant find anyone who will even touch it. One guy said 1800 for the full leather replacement i have decided to go with Alcantara. Still gonna cost me around 750 but the work os guaranteed for 3 years so im ok with it. I think the leather frame with the Alcantara inner should look pretty damn cool. Ill post pics when its done.

I am tempted to wrap the steering wheel as well to tie it in a bit more...thoughts?

 

I reckon the leather is salvageable and would advise listing it in the classifieds here as someone may want to purchase it from you.

 

OCS550,
From my many decades in the textile business, I still have access to many fabrics at wholesale pricing. On this X150 forum I have for several years provided many forum members with actually a nicer quality synthetic suede than Alcantara called Passion Suede. I get it for forum members at my cost of $5.00 per running yard which is 60" wide. It comes in about 100 colors and is every bit as rich looking and feeling as Alcantara but at a fraction of the cost. I have personally used thousands of yards of it for customer upholstery projects, I have upholstered media/studio rooms in it, and if I can save you some money, just let me know. You would only need about 2 yards.

 

Thank you so much for the offer. Unfortunately I have already paid for the Alcantara from the guy in Atl. It is being installed next week. I will post pics when finished. I am pretty excited about it. As much as I really wanted to keep the originality of the car intact (it is an extremely low mileage example) for re-sale, I have always been a fan of Alcantara and I think it will look incredible in the car. Thanks again, will update when its finished. Also, if anyone is interested, I will most likely be selling the original headliner after it has been removed as long as it is in good shape.