A friend of mine who has just ordered his 6th Mini is willing to swap out his headliner before he sells his 5th. I wanted the anthracite headliner ever since I saw it after taking delivery of my car, and got nasty with my MA for not telling me about it. How could he not mention it to someone who wears all black, ordered a JB/JB Mini, with an all black/anthracite interior? BAD MA! Later research with Classic Mini discount mail order revealed the $300 option, would cost about $1600 in all of the seperate pieces. So a swapout with a friend is obviously a better option.

Hehe, anyhow... I've taken the rear seats, B, and C pillars out during a rear speaker install, so I should be pretty comfortable doing that. My primary concern would be accessing the A pillar... I'm pretty sure some people have gotten into it to run wires or whatnot. How hard is it to access the inside of the A pillars?

Anyone know of any special consisderations with regards to a full headliner (and associated parts) swap?

 

I believe that the A pillars are not designed to be removed and replaced. I think when you remove them you damage something that makes it so it can't go back on. You may end up replacing just those pieces from the dealer... for both cars if you're switching his over to the light grey.

 

Hmm,, that does sound familiar. I could be wrong, but I think one of the things about the A pillars is that there is something that keeps them attached so that in the event the airbags deploy they don't fly off and hurt someone. If they are to be removed this connection gets cut, so to replace them properly you need new cover assemblies (which are probably not expensive). Again, I may not be spot on about this, its early and pre-coffee so I could be hallucinating

 

there is a PITA clip that holds the A-pillar trim in place. If you can get a pair of needle nosed pliers in there you CAN remove it but I damaged mine cause I got fed up. They are just like the rear ones.

 

So is it just the clip that is damaged, or potentially the plastic a-pillar cover as well?

 

just the clip i believe

 

all i can say is that the Haynes shop book for MINI's has been an invaluable resource for needs such as those. i highly recommend it to anyone who does their own work or maintenance

 

I got the Haynes book about 6 months ago, but havn't cracked it open to actually use it yet. Bad me.

 

headliner swap sounds good. i just re wrapped mine and saved the money but, thats me.

it is a ***** to deal with all the pillars though...thats for sure.

 

I have pulled my pillars and others a few times... obviously when I did my custom intierior I had to pull everything... these included to do the blue suede headliner... like UKSUV said ... it can be done... you just need to get some needle nose aned take some time....oince you pop them down you can see up in there... it's tedious and can be semi frustrating... but you can do it!

 

Yeah...like Mater Tuls said....Kalbone and a few buddies did some construction on the car a couple days ago. We had the sort of "bend" the headliner and pull it out through the lower section of the hatch. It was really easy.