I have not had, nor seen, that issue. However, If I did I would take the car to Porsche even if it is out of warrantee. That headliner failure is just not acceptable on a 5 year old car. Good Luck.

 

A common problem on all Porsches since .... forever. Good luck going for remediation from a dealer. Maybe if you hand-over your wallet to them often.
It will get worse. Soon, it will be so obvious as to be embarrassing if not dangerous.
The fix is to remove the whole inner shell and either buy a new one from Porches (same $hitty quality) or go to a good upholstery shop and have it reupholstered with a liner that lasts more than a few years. Actually this is much less expensive.
Note: what fails is the foam padding behind the liner fabric disintegrates. OEM Porsche stuff is designed to fail after the warranty expires. I had mine replaced a few years ago for less than $250.

 

I replaced mine on my 987.1 in an afternoon. Cost me about $20, but yeah, this is a common problem. Dont be that guy driving home from work with the headliner sitting on your head. I was, and it is not a good look. Pretty easy job.

 

Thanks for the replies and the advise on the 3rd party repair options. It does not seem to be the fabric separating from the padding, the entire headliner is intact, just sagging (with the stiff backing material)....strange. I'll try the dealer route, but I agree, doubt it will get me anywhere, we'll see.

 

Do you have warranty or not? Sagging headliner on a luxury car is simply unacceptable. They should replace it.

If you don't have warranty... May be s strip of all-weather 3M tape will help gluing it roof?

 

I had the problem with my 2006 987 in 2015 - it occurred shortly after I placed an order for a 2015 CGTS - I think the car was pissed that I was going to trade it in. Anyway, I took it to an independent shop and they fixed it for around $250.

 

From your picture, it doesn't appear to be the "normal" sagging, at least in my experience. It appears as though the edge worked it way out from under the trim piece for some reason. "Normal" sagging is when the headliner material droops away from deteriorating foam backing. You have nothing to lose by checking with the dealer first. If they won't do anything for you then search out a quality auto upholstery shop for what will hopefully be a fix versus a replacement. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Mine is worse, I swear I will never buy another Porsche again.

 

Unfortunately, this is not just a Porsche problem. I'm aware of Mercedes and even Audi having something similar happening. Perhaps it's a German car kind of thing, don't know. I'm not aware of any Japanese cars having this problem. While annoying, it's not enough for me to boycott any brand. And it's repairable on average in the $500 range so not the end of the world in my book.:cheers:

 

Quick update on my headliner issue (keep in mind, mine is not the fabric separating from the backing).....have not taken it to the dealer yet (FYI, out of warranty), but did do a weekend at the track and found that the issue got worse after each session on track, to the point where it was coming down on the passengers side as well. Seems the wind buffeting inside the car when on track is causing the problem (or one big contributing factor). Talking with my buddy at the track who also has a 981C and is not having the same problem I am, we were talking about the wind buffeting and he said the wind buffeting in his car is not as bad as I made mine sound. Difference wound up being he does not take out the trunk cover (piece attached to the trunk lid), but I do. Left it in for a run and buffeting was a lot less, and after pushing the headliner back up into place, it seems to have stayed. This could be all wishful thinking on my part, but was an interesting difference between someone that was having the issue and someone that wasn’t. Have not gotten the little triangular wind deflectors yet for the car, maybe i will now.

One other note...in the Technik Introduction Service Imformation for the 981 Cayman, it states the headliner is held in by clips and Velcro. Using the diagram in the manual I was able to feel around and push up where it looked like those velcro pads are and sure enough it held the headliner back in place, but I could hear a little Velcro separation after I let go. May be that all the track days and the wind buffeting in the car weakened the Velcro and I may need to replace or augment it sooner or later.

 

I can't belive "this is a thing"; 2018 Panamera 4 e-Hybrid. My dealer has hinted to me that this is MY fault along with other quality control issues. This is my first Porsche and do not wish to spend a dime fixing something that should be covered under warranty.

-- Mike

 

Like I said my 981 will be my first and last Porsche due to several quality issues such as these.

 

Seems like a very common problem for many Cayman's. I have a 2014 Porsche Cayman with 7,050 miles on it and just the other day i noticed my headliner falling apart. According to Porsche they started using a friendly environmental adhesive years ago and likely the reason for this common problem. I had a Boxster before for over 12years so i wouldn't know. Anyhow, stuff like this is unacceptable. I've owned some pretty cheap cars before and never had cosmetic stuff like this just fall apart. For a $70 ride, not cool. I believe when they say it craps out juts after warranty expires. Now i have to find an auto upholstery shop. Seriously considering selling the car and going with the 2020 corvette. German engineering is going downhill.

 

Thats great, especially if you still had warranty on the car. They should have not taken months though unless you were not in a rush. I am looking at $350 right now here in San Antonio TX.

 

I just moved away from San Antonio never really saw any Caymans lol. I have a 2006 CS and the head liner is all the way down i have thumb tacks holding the liner up! I am actually considering taking the whole piece off and leaving the bare metal

 

I have a 2014 Cayman S and the headliner seemed to sag all at once. This occurred about three weeks ago. Porsche dealer wants $1,435. Local upholstery shop wants $600 to reupholster. Match with available materials wasn't quite right so we have decided to redo the A-pillars at the same time. I've never had this type of problem with any other car. I owned two Zs, the first for 12 years and the second for 16 years. This is very disappointing.

 

That sucks, Porsche has really disappointed me with that problem. The shop that fixed mine said they have fixed many Porsche’s with that issue. Most places in San Antonio charge btw 350-500. $600 is a good bit. Surprised no one has taken this to some sort of settlement since its is 100% chance that it will happen after 4-8 yrs.

 

SA? Nice! I just moved from SA to Los Angeles

 

I agree, there should be a lawsuit or Porsche should fix this, the sticky knobs and warping door panels. All bad materials being used for an expensive car. The sagging headliner is just bad glue. My car is garaged, rarley baking in the sun and there is little humidity in the So. Ca. Very fraustrating and a snub from Porsche.

 

I just bought a 2014 Cayman and noticed the rear of the headliner is down about an inch at the rear. No cloth separation.

 

I’m looking for a decent upholstery shop where I ca bring my car in San Antonio, TX. and the average cost of doing it. Thank you

 

Update on my issue, it was at the Porsche shop yesterday and they tried replacing fasteners etc but it wouldn't work so have suggested a new headliner...
Luckily, maybe, I bought it from Carvana and it listed the issue but saidit was fixed prior to me receiving it but obviously wasn't so they gave permission to have it fixed. Now the first attempt hasn't worked so I'm waiting to hear if they will now still allow the more expensive option to be persued. Fingers crossed.

 

Never updated my issue. Well, it turns out that Carvana gave me a special "pass" and got the entire headliner replaced under their warranty. Wish I'd pulled them up about the door panels raising but I missed it when I got the car. Still, that's not an expensive fix.

 

Well today I got in my Cayman to discover the passenger side headliner sagging down. Felt around the roof and it feels like it is missing the foam on nearly the entire center area and above driver and passenger seat. I can feel the foam though towards the back. Figures the Germans used some environmental friendly crap instead of something high quality. Car is always garaged but been living in AZ for a year now and it still gets hot in the garage.

 

The long awaited headliner sag occurred on my 2014 CS last week. I will be picking it up from the Porsche recommended (isn't that nice) upholstery shop this afternoon. $650 if they can color match to the A pillar color or $850 if they have to cover that as well.

The same thing happened on my 1984 F-150 in the early 2000s. In that case I just ripped it down and painted the cardboard backing. Clearly there is a difference in quality between an 80s Ford pickup and a 2014 Porsche headliner. One lasts longer than the other 😁

 

Ugh. Ticking time bomb [emoji378].

 

This Headliner sagging/Door Panel de-laminating is a real, real, real disappointing problem for a $70,000 automobile. I wouldn't buy another one knowing that small, unnecessary, nitpicking issues like these are most likely going to show up in a few years. I keep my cars up to 20 years on average and have never had issues like these--and my other cars were a heck of a lot less expensive than the Porsche. Well I am glad I got that off my chest. I feel better now.

 

I can come to terms with a design or engineering flaw in a premium brand or product like a Porsche. In fact, it's inevitable.
But I admit that I find it very disappointing that the premium BRAND would even consider treating a well documented design flaw as something that can be the burden of the customer.

Or put another way, a brand like Porsche should be celebrated for being the kind of company that makes it very clear that THEY know that the headliner and door panel warping are on THEM. And that the customer can feel confident that they will have either issue addressed properly.

Once they start parsing the flaw as if it's NOT always THEIR failure, then Porsche is no longer any more premium of a Brand than any other brand that avoids accountability.

It doesn't mean that I don't love Porsche automobiles, but it DOES change the way I feel about the Brand. And for me personally, their product is worth le$$ literally to me.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

 

It's an interesting thing about the differing perspectives one can have on this.

I entered the search for a 981 knowing that the headliner and door panels could well need attention. But I also knew both problems are very fixable. I made the decision that buying a car with either or both of these issues would not be a disqualifying issue. In the end, I bought a car that did have both of these issues. I asked for and got a break from the seller for these issues. I've spent a grand total of less than $400 fixing the problems - door panels were a DIY job, so cost me nothing. Headliner was repaired by a local upholstery shop.

But, I don't give Porsche a free pass on this at all. It is pretty bad that they didn't test their adhesives properly in all the conditions the cars will see. A clear engineering and QA failure. I've never really bought into the myth of "German build quality". They should've owned up to this and repaired these sort of issues even out of warranty, but car companies don't often do what they "should".

Yet I still bought the car because it is fundamentally quite reliable and offers a unique combination of traits that I wanted that could not be found elsewhere.

Porsche's completely at fault here, for sure. Very low marks for them on this front. Those of you who bought these cars new have every right to be pissed off.

But it's still a cool car to own.

 

I purchased my 2014 Cayman S back in mid 2019, since purchasing, I ran into two common issues that pop up on these forums. The squeak behind the dash (fuel tank foam/padding deterioration), and two, the sagging headliner. I just fixed the sagging headliner over summer 2021. Cost roughly $625 total, done by a local classic Porsche dealer/repair shop. They did excellent work and charged about 40% less than my local Porsche dealer wanted to charge.

 

'German Engineering' does not mean its better, it just means 'German Engineering'. Where you thinking of something else? I have had many cars and not one of them ever had sagging headliners and they did not use 'German Engineering' on those. So maybe that sagging headliners is what its meant

 

Well, my 981 Cayman S just had the same headliner problem. Went to the dealer and they only said sorry it is out of warrantee! Called 1800 Porsche and they called back and said sorry it is out of warrantee. Asked them to meet me halfway and sell me a new one for cost. "Sorry I don't have the authority to do that". For only $1,800 Porsche will put a new headliner in that will fail within 8 years! Thought that was irritating but the very next week my head unit went out... $5,000 should get that repaired. This is a car that has been garaged daily with 56,000 miles on it. I have also decided that I will never buy another Porsche again. I like driving it and I love the look, but too many fails for a young car. I will get a upholstery shop to replace headliner and may go to a larger screen android head unit for less than $1,000 that wont fail in 8 years.

 

What year is your 981? At a minimum, it would seem to be at least 4 years out of factory warranty.. I know of no car manufacturer that warranties trim items like a headliner beyond the factory warranty. There are a number of descriptions here for DIY, and other ones explaining how the owner removed the headliner panel, took it somewhere, had it recovered, and reinstalled it for considerably less than a dealer would charge to do it (someone has to pay for the free coffee and muffins, and free loners, etc.) The "head-unit" can be repaired (not replaced) for considerably less than $5000 (Becker in NJ does it) - or - the wiser choice - replaced with a newer aftermarket design. You may lose some functionality if you replace it with aftermarket, but you'll have access to newer maps that generally can be owner-updated.

I'm sure Porsche will miss your patronage - you should write them and tell them that. Written and mailed letters get much more attention than emails or complaints on brand-enthusiast forums. I'm not certain what your telling a bunch of enthusiasts that you won't be buying another Porsche accomplishes, except perhaps getting it off your chest. If it achieves that goal - more luck to you!

I was - as I usually do - going to ask you to introduce yourself and your car in our New Member Introductions forum, but I suspect this might be counterproductive since it sounds as if your ownership of a Porsche is close to coming to an end. I hope whatever you replace it with serves you better. My wife has a Lexus. They don't break (actually.. they do.. but Lexus has been known to just fix things when it's in for an oil change and not charge or even tell me what they did) but they are also intensely boring to drive, to the point, it's dangerous for me to drive it, I start to fall asleep.

Personally - if I owned your car - I'd join the Porsche Club of America, and then go to a local chapter meeting and ask who the honest independent mechanics in your area are. I'm certain several will be recommended. Using independents can cut your cost of ownership in half vs the Porsche dealer. Porsche dealers exist for (1) rich people who don't think anything of a $500 oil change.. (2) to overcharge the rich people for the privilege of overpaying for a new Porsche.

At least that's how most of the "secondary" owners look at them. 981's are getting into the hands of 2nd and 3rd owners. The 2nd owners probably have a CPO warranty so they'll still visit the dealer on occasion. The 3rd owners are enthusiasts who accept that it's an old car (8-11 years old now), a formerly expensive car (even used they're still not "cheap",) and something to look at as more a great hobby/toy that you spoil by buying it goodies and accessories. And a car where they may have to get their hands greasy once in a while, to make it practical to own and be able to eat too. The 3rd owners tend to be people who are comfortable on a brand-forum like this one, sharing experiences and knowledge with other owners, they're our people so to speak.

Welcome to Planet-9, the Friendly Porsche Forum (at least for now..)

Good luck with whatever you replace it with!