Thought I'd share some of the pics from replacing the roof head liner in my 2009 GTI.
This is not a how to guide, but I thought that it may help other people see where the Mk6's side airbags start and finish if they're running cables etc. show where the foam blocks are on the head liner. Which is handy if like me you have a rear dash cam and have routed its cable to the front of the car on top of the liner. Or if you're just curious as to what a Mk6 looks like with no roof liner.
Why did I do it, well the liner's fabric had started to detach just above where the sunglasses holder is at the front of the liner. An initial attempt at using fabric contact adhesive to rectify the issue made it, well just worse and the repair looked awful.
So decided to bite the bullet and get a new liner. It also meant I could finally properly torque up the aftermarket DAB/GPS/FM sharkfin aerial I'd installed a while ago. Was always concerned it wasn't tight enough and may let water in, but at the time I didn't want to over tighten and dent my roof! For that aerial installation I just dropped the rear section of liner and had to 'guess' 4 Nm with a smaller socket set that would fit in the space available.
First problem was the size of box it came it at the dealer, no way that was fitting in the car. Secondly how to fit something in that's the size of the interior it's meant to replace. After taking it out of its box, help from the parts chap and some gentle persuasion I managed to fit the liner in. Shut the boot and drove home with it 1 cm from my head. Had this resulted in epic fail, my next plan was to ask for a test drive in a new VW Transporter
So getting the old one out did mean removing the B-pillar upper trim, loosening the upper A-pillar and C-Pillar trim and removing all sun visors, handles, front reading light plastic section etc. But it came out.
Didn't come with the wiring for the lights so had to transfer the old loom on to the new using some of the still sticky tape of the original loom, plus some new blue 3M masking tape.
Also the new liner didn't have the u-section precut out for the rear view mirror's plastic trunking. I checked with the dealership and was told "nope that's how they come".
So that was a nervous moment having to take a stanley knife to a brand new liner.
Car then looked rather Mad Max with no liner, but meant I could finally get my Sharkfin aerial torqued up (my guess was way off). It also gave me the opportunity to tidy up some cable routing for my dashcams, and aftermarket handsfree microphone cabling.
The black plastic clip next to the A-pillar trim, that holds the connector for the vanity light in the sun visor. Was a little tricky to release the connectors from it with the head liner in the way.
Wooden sound deadening on display.
Lots of side airbags everywhere.
The infamous Sharkfin aerial nut location in the below pic, now to the correct torque and no dented roof or risk of water ingress.
Putting back together wasn't too bad, just fiddly getting it lined up and the reading lights in. Ended up taking the lower section of the B-Pillar trim off. As trying to get the upper section of the B-Pillar trim back on and align with the seat belt height adjuster slider was a pig - many curse words were said!
Happy with the result. Had to replace most of the pillar trim covers that say "Airbag" as they generally break when you remove them.
Should last another 14 years by which point the Mk8 "may" have arrived...
