headliner/pillar reupholster?

[iowarabbit]

i've always been put off by the light grey from the pillars up in my black uni/anthracite (black as you can get FTW), so i was planning on redoing it/having it done at some point in black suede anyways. then the other day, my dumb ass got the cherry of a cigarette STUCK in the seam between the driver a-pillar and the headliner when i hit a pothole while ashing. by the time i could safely get it out w/o crashing my car, there was a nice burn. not terrible, but it doesn't look great by any means. just enough of an excuse to pretty my baby's insides up sooner than later. haha and no, i won't be smoking in the car anymore. but i digress, on to the point.

has anyone here had their headliners/pillars/both redone? i thought i saw some folks on the 'tex with it done in interlagos awhile back, but after searching keywords for an unreasonable amount of time i can't seem to find the dead thread.

if anybody has, how much did it run you? don't want to get ripped off, between tattoos and car mods i've got a tight budget.
and if anybody did it themselves, how did you go about it? worth saving the $, or is the PITA factor too high?

thanks for input/razzing for idiocy/advice in advance.

 

[brokendreams]

From what I've seen, at least one guy on here has redone his himself with red fabric. It looked like the shizzy. Dude also said that once off, it was a little hard bending the pillar back into the right position... as in, there is no way to get it off and re-attach it perfectly.

 

[iowarabbit]

shitty. might have to hold off for a little while then, i can deal with the little oops for the time being. i mainly just don't want to get an airbag light messing with/removing the covers. not sure if i would or not, but i'd rather be safe than sorry.
plus if i have to get it done by a pro, ive got bigger priorities for my hard-earned money... like wheels, drop, & tint.

still want to get it done bad though!

 

[ajman]

I pulled off my A and B pillar covers last weekend and "painted" them. It didn't come out perfect, but I'm probably the only person that would notice where it could have fit better. Trouble is, even with the printout from the manual telling you how to do it, you still need a little hands on experience, which comes at the expense of your car. (So, practice on a friend's car....!)

My car's an '07 United Gray 2-door Rabbit. The headliner is beige, as are the A, B, and C, pillars. Everything below the pillars is dark gray, black, or whatever. I didn't like those beige pillars standing out in my field of view. The beige headliner was OK with me.

The A and B pillar covers are held on with one Torx head screw (under the "Air Bag" badge).

A Pillar: Remove the screw and pull the top of the cover toward the center of the car (like, toward the corresponding A cover on the other side of the car. Just pull it out enough to get a flat head screwdriver between the pillar and the cover. Watch what you're doing from outside the car (you'll be looking through the windshield) and unsnap the three fasteners with the screwdriver, starting at the top and working your way down. Be sure to keep pulling the cover away from the pillar as you go, so you have room for the screwdriver. Once the you've unsnapped the fasteners, just wiggle the cover around (it's flexable and not brittle) and you'll see how to pull it off.

B Pillar: A little more difficult to reinstall, as the cover wraps around the pillar and there are seemingly several places that have to snap together at the same time to get it to fit right. I won't try to explain it, but the manual does a decent job of showing you which way to tug and pull. (If you send me your email address, I'll send you the pages as ,jpgs). Another thing about the B covers is that the seat belts go through them. If you want to unthread them, there are more things to remove, so I opted to just extend the belts all the way, clamp them, then mask the belt and spray the cover as far away from the car as the belts would allow.

I used Dupli-color vinyl & fabric spray to paint the covers. The only close colors are black and charcoal gray. I chose the gray (HPV-111) and it's a little too light, but pretty close and still much better than the beige that the cover was before. Don't spray too much, or you'll lose the "fabric" texture of the cover (like I did....). Just spray enough to change the color and stop.

Let me know if you want the manual pages.....

 

[NewYorkMike]

a gal on the 'tex called "Elmer J Fudd" redid her deadliner in a plaid....looked pretty cool

 

[tuddy]

From what I've seen, at least one guy on here has redone his himself with red fabric. It looked like the shizzy. Dude also said that once off, it was a little hard bending the pillar back into the right position... as in, there is no way to get it off and re-attach it perfectly.

That was me. It was a pain in the ass to fabric wrap them for one thing because of the bends at the bottom. Im sure a professional could do it alot better then I could. And Yea when they were off, I had a ton of trouble getting them to look OEM again when I wanted them back on.

So I took the Fabric off, and Goo-Gone'd the hell out of them to get them to look normal again.

Im at work right now, And have more pictures of it on my comp at home.

You can see it doesnt sit right. BUT if I were to do it again, I would have put them back on differently. So my final word is, If you get a professional to wrap them, it shouldnt be TOO bad.