replace/fix or gut? This is pissing my off, all the painted surfaces are pealing and sticky, the rear seat foam is starting to disintigrate(sp?) and the "leatherette" on all four doors is falling off. Hard to sell a car with no interior but WTF, its going to cost a small fortune to replace. Also, the upper B-pillar trim peice on both sides is breaking apart.


aaarrggg

ocd

The culprit: Florida humidity. My friend's 2001 BMW X5 is far worse than any Audi I have seen for these same issues.

Advice:
My finger plates are peeling a little, but that is a cheap fix (I think like $17 each).

For the shift boot surround, just conver it in black alcantera like I did (I have some left over if you want it).

Door panels; mine are coming off a little, and I was thinking about doing alcantera there as well. Bling Bling Bill did this on his Lexus and it looked good.

Rear seat: i actually have a spare rear seat, but it is black cloth.

After many hours I finally finished removing the evil Audi headliner glue. I bought some microsuede to recover everything but I wanted to shop it around to some professional shops knowing they will probably do a better job and I don't want to deal with this again. First shop I took it to basically said it wasn't possible but I know that isn't true so on to the next shop. These guys were more willing to work with me but wanted to get a sample of their ultrasuede to see the difference in stretch between my fabric and theirs. I'm waiting to hear back on that.

Worst case a local S4 owner did his in microsuede by himself and said he would give me a hand. Fortunately I'm a patient person so if I need to work the material for a while to fit the contours I'm ok with that. I'll be sure to post some pics when it is complete. Just wish over things would stop breaking so I could focus on finishing it :)

my patience was at an all time low last night....ended up cutting the fvckers out of the car. No metal damage but those plastic pieces are toast. I need to figure out how to remove the plastic c-pillar window surrounds...any ideas?

I have that sticky orange foam crap all over the inside of my car. I already stripped and repainted the boot surround. Cup holder was stripped only (its the same color black under the crappy soft touch paint). I need new upper b-pillars, and if I can get the c-pillar window surround out I'm going to repaint that. The fabric covered A and C pillars I think I'll have your guy take a look at them (I'm impressed with his match of your headliner...damn close)and have recovered.

Rear seat, not sure what I'm going to do. I might pull the leatherette off and put a piece of black fabric between the foam and the pleather just to keep the foam from coming throught the holes.

It was a couple of weeks ago that we took them out so it is a little fuzy now. When I put them back in it will refresh my memory but that won't be too soon. I do know that we did the following:

pulled out the rear seat bench
folded the seats down
removed the upper seat side bolsters
removed the plastic trim that runs along the door frame and seat back

With all of that out of the way it was easier to pull and pry on the C pillars without breaking clips and the plastic weld (where the top and bottom meet at the point at the rear of the window.)

I can take a picture of the backside of the piece and car body to give you an idea of where the clips are if you'd like.

My Jetta held up great with the exception of the handles, center trim, center console, and glove box which were all replaced under warranty. The dash, carpet and headliner all looked like new at 85k.

I've read on VWVortex where guys had their entire velour interiors replaced with sport cloth after complaining to the dealer about the lint problems while they were under the 12 month/12,000 mile "satisfaction" period. I wonder if VAG did that to get their initial quality ratings up?

These problems seem to be much more prevalent on the newer Audis than the older ones. I've seen junk yard coupes that still had decent interiors.

Cheap plastic does have it's benefits (unless it's a dodge truck).

But it is frustrating to deal with the soft touch painted parts. It seems the germans finally fixed that issue, and I hear that it is no longer a problem.

I think my headliner falling down at 95K miles was a real suprise, and a real disappointment. Audi uses the absolute most difficult/worthless/PITA glue of anyone, and that does tick me off. The headliner guy I used usually turns away Audis because of the stupid glue they use.

As for interior falling apart, you should see my Mother-in-law's 2001 Acura....wow, what a wreck. But i think it is mostly due to her lack of care than quality.

My miata interior is holding up ok, plastics were not all quite the same color/texture to begin with, so that is a small issue. But they do use hard plastic, and that seems to resist scratches very well.

in the last couple of years becuase of the leather seats deteriorating. Mine was ok (lots of hard plastic), but I took care of it and sold it before 50k.

tan and black i believe.