Help, Advice, Owners' Discussion and DIY Tutorials on Volvo's stylish, distinctive P2 platform cars sold as model years 2001-2007 (North American market year designations).
That super stretchy headliner fabric applied over a foam base is pure evil. 3M Super 77 spray adhesive is probably your best bet, I've had good success with it. Note: you have to peel up the entire piece of fabric and reapply it. If you just try to stick down the edge that's loose without doing the whole thing, over the course of 6 months to a year you'll get wrinkle right at the edge of the repair that eventually grows into the area that wasn't repaired and looks bad again. My sister's '03 XC90 uses a different, woven textile headliner fabric that is not as stretchy, looks a ton nicer, and cooperates better with this sort of repair. I had to re-stick down one of her pillars' fabric that resulted from water damage due to a leaky sunroof drain. I would postulate that earlier, better, headliner likely was used before the 'Ford' influence. This 'little but constant aggravation' cheap out stuff that wears you down to eventually despise owning the vehicle as it ages is exactly what Ford is known for. Someday with I'm ready for a newer Volvo I'm not going to bother with a P3. Frankly I'll hold onto the P2s that is nicer (less Ford meddling), until I'm ready to skip directly to a Geely SPA/CMA, which are nicer again.
There is a thread on here about using two sided duct tape to reattach loose fabric. On my 2004 S80 the B pillar fabric peeled back. I used the duct tape method to reattach the loose edge and it looks great. June
My Volvo cars owned
1989 740 GLT ordered
1994 850 4door standard shift ordered
1996 960 ordered
1998 S90 ordered totalled after 3 weeks
1998 V70 GT dealer stock car
2002 S80 T6 ordered totalled
2004 S80 T6 dealer stock car and current car owned
If you happen to be in Montreal, I have two of these for sale. They are not "too" expensive new either, with Europarts one may use Canada Direct shipping without customs fees
I tried removing and gluing mine back on and they did not fit right. If you have a local sewing store buy matching material, glue on an oversize piece, then cut after it dries.
When headliner fabric separates from the foam backing, there is no point gluing it back up. That will never look good again. The only solution is to clean off the remnants of old foam backing from the trim or headliner, a green scotchbrite pad is a good weapon of choice. Then you use an adhesive to glue the new headliner fabric. I decided to go with 3M Headliner Adhesive at $20/can, which Autozone actually carries in the store.
My BMW headliner has started sagging, so naturally I decided to practice on my Jeep first. The headliner on the Jeep wasn't too bad, but the speaker bar looked nasty. I redid the speaker bar and headliner with fleece material, because cheap fleece has lots of fun design options. I'm putting off the BMW headliner because I can't decide whether I want to get the 'OEM match' fabric at $50/yd, or go with 'close enough' from Joann at $15/yd. Working on the Jeep was a good practice run, and I also researched the adhesive options. I was tempted to use 3M 77 Multipurpose, but the instructions on the can explicitly state it should not be used for headliner. The headliner is exposed to extreme temperatures during the year, and always has gravity pulling it down. I thought it was worth to splurge on the specific adhesive just to avoid having to redo the job in a couple of years.
I'm curious if oragex is onto something with plastic trim. I'll have to try that option next time I raid the junkyard.