Advice Sought: Removal of panel in headliner

fhl

fhl

Member
Hi,

I feel there is something loose and rattling in the headlining just behind the central mini-sun visor in front of the rear view mirror. I'm curious to see what may be the cause of this...broken clip?

I contacted the previous owner's Audi garage and they mentioned that it previously had a sun-visor clip replaced according to their service log.

I'd like to have a look by removing the plastic panel which contains the opensky and light switches/interior lights/map lights from the roof headlining. However, I'm concerned I might damage this or the roof liner if I pull with too much force or lever it off incorrectly. Is there a diagram showing how this connects to the roof headlning? Is it clipped in place or are there hidden screws? Should it slide in a particular direction before levering off?

Thanks
 
20120919_172631.jpg

Thanks to Skipton01 for advice on how to remove the panel. I found this stray bolt behind it. Now removed.
 
fhl

It looks like this could be a fixing screw from the OSS motor. Probably best to check this out in case the others are also loose.

Steve
 
Steve, Thanks for your reply, I shall check the OSS motor screws. Regards, Andrew
 
marshy98 said:
Hi

Could you please tell me how to remove this panel as i also have a annoying squeak

Regards

Marshy
Click to expand...

Hi,

to remove the headliner you will need to:

Remove all upper pillar trims (A, B, C and D) as these cover the headliner.
Remove both front and rear light units and the ultrasonic detector.
Remove vanity mirror lights if fitted.
Remove the front side and centre sun visors and retailing clips.
Remove the 4 grab handles.
Remove the 2 bolts from behind the front roof light.
Remove the 2 bolts from the rear two corners (which were covered by the D pillar trims)
Unclip the fastening behind the rear roof light.
Lastly, if you have the open sky roof, unclip the blind surround fixing clips.

Reassembly should start with mounting the front sun visors before attaching any clips or bolts as this helps centre the roof properly.

The open sky blind clips are difficult to see and if done incorrectly (as I did when I removed my headliner) can be damaged.
There are a number of clips round the edge of the opening which are attached to the headliner and clip to the bottom lip of the sun blind. They should be prised open with a plastic tool such that they release their grip from the blind and are retained on the headliner. What happened when I did it was that I ended up prising the clips off the headliner causing the fastenings and the clips to be bent and damaged.

This should not happen:

DSC03038.jpg

The clips should stay on the headliner like this on removal:

DSC03041.jpg

regards

Andrew
 
ajsellors said:
Hi,

to remove the headliner you will need to:

Remove all upper pillar trims (A, B, C and D) as these cover the headliner.
........

Andrew
Click to expand...

Hi Andrew, I've just removed my non OSS headliner and found I did not need to remove B & C trims as the edge of the headliner just lifts up from behind the tops of the B & C trims. However, whist I managed to get the D trim out there is no way it is going back without removing some of the boot liners. It's a stupid design if you ask me!

Looking a the D trim panel and the way it hooks into headlining at one end and into 2 x A clips at the other, it would appear the whole of the D trim needs to drop down between the body shell and the boot side panels :(

Do you know what is the minimum I can get away with removing or (better still) just pulling away?

Some items I can think off:

- remove parcel shelf and 2 hidden retaining bolts (done)
- remove top floor and side supports
- remove bottom floor and side supports
- remove back trim
- pull away / remove side trims

I did once pull away the boot OS panel when fitting parking sensors to place the bleep box by the rear door and it was a right pain retrieving the A clips that invariably get left behind in the body shell (had 4 of those A clips today with the D trim)

Maybe Tom @2work can chip in.

Thanks for reading.
 
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