My 2009 CS OEM black fabric headliner's foam backing just gave up the ghost. Here is Marin County (across GG Bridge from SF), I just got a $1,500 offer to remove the old fabric, backing and glue, and replace it with a comparable foam-backed fabric. The guy said it would be a lot of work (around 6 hours). So, I'm thinking, "That's $250/hr of after-tax income to me." To steal a Garry Shandling joke, "For that kind of money, I expect to see breasts pressed up against my windows on demand."
I'm retired, so my time costs nothing.
So, youtube education to remove roof panel: 1 Hr. $0.
Actual panel removal: 2 Hr. (I am very, very incompetent).
Cloth removal: 30 seconds.
Foam removal: 2 Hr. FYI: isopropyl alcohol dissolves the foam and mobilizes the OEM glue to form a fabulously-viscous black goo of snot-like consistency. Removing this goo with an old credit card or gift card, and/or a metal putty knife works well, but removing all the little snot balls is about as fun as changing a stranger's baby's diaper. So, while it worked, I'd opt for a dry-removal process instead (wire wheel bit in a cordless drill seems to work).
So, now the big question that I haven't seen answered yet: What's the minimum thickness of headliner material needed in order to keep all the plastic trim pieces from rattling around following re-installation? Standard foam-backing is 3/16" thick. I'm going to replace with genuine Alcantara fabric, but the Alcantara "panel" grade fabric (1 mm thick), which Alcantara describes as the right stuff for premium automobile headliners, is an unbacked, foamless fabric. The backed Alcantara product is described as appropriate for seats, but not specified for headliner panels. But, the "backing" which Alcantara is referring to here is NOT a foam material, it is a thin, bi-directionally woven mesh which adds strength (not girth) to the 1 mm-thick Alcantara fabric.
So, to do a correct install, do I also need to purchase a 3/16" sheet of foam backing, glue that foam sheet onto the Alcantara fabric, and then proceed to glue the foam-backed Alcantara panel into the headliner panel? Or will this foam backing layer just assure that all my hard work will fail again for that same, original cause? Is there a pre-Y2K foam backing source capable of withstanding the brutally-harsh atmospheric conditions of an atypically-temperate west coast garage? Did foam backing go "gluten-free" at the turn of the millennium?