Suede Headliner

[EDfx45]

headliner

I do int repairs and they sell a dye that works well and would be better than painting them. when you paint fabric it tends to harden and feel rough.

 

[shadow191]

It's synthetic; I had debated real suede, but it would have increased the cost immensely. Also with real suede, there likely would have been a lot of stitching since it doesn't stretch which I wasn't crazy about on the headliner. I'm considering having my door armrests and center armrest done in real suede. They're smaller areas and stitching would actually look nice there.

that looks really good, is it suede or alcantara?

 

[turbocad6]

almost no headliner or automotive upholstery is done in real suede... the high end jobs are pretty much all done with alcantara, which is a premium man made material that is better than any natural suede in looks performance & durability... real suede would stand up to use like crap compared to alcantara & pretty much all high end luxury & exotics will have alcantara, not real suede.

it's a bit expensive but not ridiculously so... for example doing a head liner in a less expensive suede may be ~$90 in materials, where to do the same job in real deal alcantara may wind up being a little over $400 in materials... on a headliner I guess the durability & performance of alcantara isn't highly necessary as this is an area that rarely see's much wear at all, but if you were doing something like seats or other upholstery in a car then the price difference is more well worth it for the durability, water & stain resistance & wear resistance that is way better than any other man made synthetic suede... it's also much tougher material as far as rip & tear resistance & holds stitching & seems very well, where some other synthetic suede can be a lot more "paper like" in comparison.

 

[regular]

looks great, im doing the same when i recover my seats in red leather. need to find the oem black plastics/visors first though.

 

[GannabanJB]

Cost?

 

[ThE Fx 45 BeAsT]

looks great, im doing the same when i recover my seats in red leather. need to find the oem black plastics/visors first though.

good luck it took me months of ebay searching to find those since the majority of the fx come with the tan ones.

 

[shadow191]

Total cost was $700 for labor and materials. As some people have mentioned, they've been quoted cheaper, but the guy I use is someone I've used for 10 years now. Some of the higher cost versus a regular car would be that the FX has a hatch so he had to remove most of the trim pieces back there to get the headliner out. And then he had to be careful w/ the sunroof so that it would still open and so on. I also had him modify the headliner slightly to put the flip down monitor in. The headliner has a bump in it normally to house the dome light. I had that bump removed and the headliner reinforced right there so the monitor would mount flat.

As a comparison of his normal pricing, he once redid an entire interior for me - 2 racing seats, the back seat, 4 door panels, headliner, and package shelf with custom logos embroidered into the seats for $1200. That wasn't real leather of course, but it took him 2 solid days so it gives you an idea of what he charges for labor. I think the FX took him about 11 hours so I couldn't really complain about the cost.

Cost?

 

[medfly33]

Nicely done shadow! Looks great!!

I will be blacking out the rest of my interior very soon too! I did this on a previous car and loved it! I went all DIY and it cost me about 50 bucks! Not trying to be a chump shadow - you were wise to have the pros do it and spend money instead of time and patience! I, however, live for the cosmetic DIY!! It was paint, vinyl spraymount and material. I found a sort of faux alcantara material at JoAnn's Fabric Store (had to punch a hole in my "man-card" walking into the place that day). It's soft like suede yet it doesn't catch light very much so it always looked smooth! I painted everything else black and reinstalled. The hard parts were taking out the headliner, putting the headliner back in and the visors. Hopefully all are easier on an FX!! I'll keep you guys posted!

Thanks for sharing shadow!
Terry

 

[shadow191]

No offense taken, I know my limitations. I'm very bad with finishing work; I've wrapped stuff in vinyl before and it's not my thing. It never comes out to my satisfaction. I don't have the patience for it. I've built fiberglass stereo enclosures, but always took it to my buddy's shop for the final prep and paint (I just couldn't sit there for hours and sand). I've done motor swaps before, but just don't have the ability to tuck the fabric into corners just right w/ interiors.