Nashvegas

Documenting headliner replacement for others as I replaced the headliner in a 2013 C2S with a new one (bought a special order replacement part from Porsche rather than recover - impossible to source replacement Espresso Brown Alcantara in the US or from Alcantara in Italy direct -- I tried... ).

The car had 22K miles on it when the headliner fell in December 2023.

First -- No need to remove the windscreen on any 991 variant per the workshop manual.

I found workshop manual / WSM instructions and followed them - basically lower the headliner, rotate the front towards the passenger door, then slide out passenger door. These WSM instructions neglected to mention that without bending the headliner it will not fit out the passenger door.

Pretty straightforward in summary:
--Remove visors, A/B/C pillars, upper console / light switch console.
--Remove screws and press in clip fasteners around sunroof aperture if you have sunroof. Very simple really.
--Then, headliner drops down.
-- Remove shifter **** (PDK in my case) -- cover the sharp shifter remnants with thick towel otherwise it damages headliner.
-- Scoot front seats all the way down, back and backrest all the way back resting on rear seats.
-- Front edge of headliner rests on center console.
--You remove out the the passenger door front first. So slowly start to rotate the headliner to the passenger side, with a helper, and it slides right out.
-- Replacement is opposite of removal

All of it was straight forward with 3 notable exceptions:
1) The b-pillars on 991.1 are an absolute fiddle to get off properly. I bought the specific Porsche/VW special tool on Ebay for it, and even with that I barely got them off. First one took me over an hour of guessing how to do it properly.
2) The headliner does *not* fit out the door without bending it about 25%. Problem is, it tries to crease / fold (which can screw it up). I used ratchet straps to sort of bend it progressively into a curved shape (4 ratchet straps along the length of the headliner did the trick.
3) When removing the headliner, the rather delicate surfaces on the interior will get scuffed up, scratched and damaged very easily. What I did realize though that caused some difficulty -- on the top of the headliner are glued / bonded several metal black metal brackets along the edges. Those metal brackets will scratch and scuff up anything everything they touch on your interior so... be careful. I wish the WSM had mentioned this. BTW I'd worry about small local shops maybe not knowing this and resulting damage to your car, so if you take it somewhere, best to mention this.

Pro tip: Double Wrap headliner in a fitted sheet before removing and and installing: Great tip I read somewhere else (Maybe on a Cayman board). I double wrapped the headliner in a blanket / large bedsheet and taped around it to keep th blanket on, then removed it. Also, I taped towels all over the car surfaces.

The high probability damage areas are:

• Rear side panels (esp if yours are leather like mine).
• Steering wheel lower edge
• Steering wheel airbag,
• Dashboard lower part around glove box when you slide it out.
• Sides of center console -- this is the area that gets "pressed on" quite hard by headliner (pics below)
• Front passenger dashboard front edge.
• About halfway up passenger B-pillar,
• Passenger door trim (esp if leather).

BTW for anyone with a roll cage, that stinks, cuz it would have to come out first.

Pics and narration below.


Bringing new headliner home from dealer. Only car it would fit it is my 2000 Discovery 2.

Part #

Underside of new headliner

Actually made in 2024... provenance

Nashvegas

Pics showing what I covered up and the headliner removal.


Lowering headliner


Now I'm utterly trapped...


If you attempt to drag your headliner across this shifter nubbin while this is exposed, you will rip your headliner (how do I know this -- luckily it was the old one as I was removing it. Then I covered this with a tennis ball with a towel over it.





These are the metal brackets that are death to your delicate interior components.


High wear areas covered


This is probably the area that ** WILL ** get damaged if you don't cover it up. I put a few layers of towels on here, taped well. Note if you don't tape things down, while you move the headliner out, all the towels or protection will shift.



On the right, same thing




NOTE: I did not get pics of my covering up the headliner with the sheets, bending it with ratchet straps, and rotating it out the front door. But that's what I did and it worked well.

Nashvegas

Here are the fasteners at the rear.


Velcro clip on car body, pass side.

You can see one came unglued from my old headliner and was here... causing a rattle btw since I've owned the car.

Velcro clip on car body, drivers side.

Underside of headliner, what the clips look like on the headliner side.

Clips on headliner that press fit up into sunroof surround

The B-pillar clips that are hugely problematic on 991.1. Note on 991.2 they changed this, on 991.2 you remove the plastic SRS/airbag plate, and simply unscrews. I think it's easier on 991.2 in other words.

Note: The clips can stay on the car when removing the headliner. Make sure you remove and reinstall on new headliner.

Nashvegas

Here are a couple photos of the interior damage you can very easily cause when removing the headliner.

See the small depressions in the rear side panels? (which are leather)

Those are from the edges of the headliner contacting the side panels as you manhandle the headliner to remove it.

Luckily these were only slight depressions in the leather, and they have completely disappeared after a few days in the sun. But -- careful please with the interior. I cannot stress this enough.

In hindsight… what I could’ve done is cut sheets of cardboard, and put them against the rear side panels and that would’ve probably worked well as additional protection.

(Had I known this I may not have done it myself…. But I was already into the job and it worked out in the end. Ultimately, I caused a few scuffs here and there, but nothing that is too bad)

Nashvegas

The final result was perfect. Very happy.

asellus

wow. adhesive on hook+loop as a 'fastener' ? I don't have as much faith in that as the porsche engineers do, clearly