Mustang to fear 1 piece headliner

Saberdemon

Active Member
Mar 12, 2020
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Maryland
So I went ahead and bought the MTF headliner. The main piece fits pretty well. A little trimming here and there and it should be good to go. But here is the problem that has me somewhat pissed off. The A-pillar has an interior measurement of 21” which means the inner trim needs to be 21” to properly fit. The trim I was sent measures 20” along the inner trim. I have Emailed Rich to see what they plan to do to make this right. I will post his response here.
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So I waited For a response from rich and never got one back. So i sent one last email asking how he planned to make this right and his response was they will give a refund. Pretty sure this refund will be some tiny amount that will not cover buying a correct pair of apillar trim that actually fits my car but i will wait and see. Now I expected a lot more from a company that has nothing but positive reviews but that’s what I have come to expect from most places.
 
So here is what to expect from MTF. Now rich knows that I have the rest Installed In the mustang. The only thing left was for the correct a pillar trim to be sent to me. Instead of doing the right thing and just sending me the correct trim pieces I get an email asking me if I have everything boxed back up and ready to go. What kind of crackpot business is this? Anyone who has put in a one piece headliner knows that there will always be some minimal trimming to make it fit perfectly. I have zero doubts that the people at Mustang to fear know this. There are a lot of people who may praise mustang to fear compared to TMI but I know whenever I had an issue with something TMI sent me they took care of me the proper way. If a multi piece product was sent with a wrong piece they sent me the correct piece without any issues.
This is just me making sure everyone understands that while you may have a good experience with this company not everyone has. Be very careful with parts you purchase. I do not want anyone else to go through the same mess I have.
 
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This morning was spent installing the front and rear windows in the mustang. The front wi Dow went in smooth. The rear window on the other hand is a nightmare. Because the MTF headliner is so thick, when the seal tries to go around the pinch weld and the headliner, it pulls the seal around the window. This causes the seal to break away from the outside of the window quite a bit. We are going to try to heat up the headliner so that it will lay completely flush against the pinch weld. Just letting everyone know the troubles with using a one piece headliner. If heating it works I will post what we do so others can do this to help.
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The seal got a little better but never got a good seal so we pulled it out. Had a little bit of the headliner that was still past the end of the pinch weld. Ground that little bit off, heated the lip of the headliner so it lays flat against the pinch weld, and put the window back in. Looks better but the top corners of the seal are still away from the glass.
A final assessment of the headliner is that while it looks good with some modifications, the A-Pillar trim looks like crap if you install it without doing modifications and change how you install it. You need to use heat to form it at the roof line so the ABS stretches to the curve of the roof edge. You can mount it outside of the windlace if you want but personally I thought That looked like crap, so I modified It using heat to mold it to the actual contours of the A-Pillar, especially along the pinch weld were the windlace runs. This allowed me to make it look factory by running it under the windlace. Once I made the modifications it turned out pretty good, not great by any means but good. But while it looks good, it does not seem like a good value for the price. My advise would be to wait for a super sale and not pay for than $200 for them. For the work and final product it’s not really worth it. If you are happy with mounting the trim outside the windlace and having the rear window seal not sit flush against the top corners of the window, which pushes the trim out at the corner, then this may be for you, but it was not for us.
I hope this helps some of you make an informed decision.
 
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This make me re-consider the thought of using one of these. The only reason I was considering it to start with is for the extra headroom...but since I still have a an unused repro headlinder I don't actually need to buy one....in short its really the a pillar trim rather than the headliner you are unhappy with though? Can you install it without the trim possibly? Maybe use the factory headliner clips at the top to hold something to cover that corner?
 
Wicked,
I absolutely hate the A-Pillar trim fit for this product. For this much money it should fit better than stock. I could Never stand having trim over the windlace. To me it makes it look sloppy. The fit for the rear window seal also has me annoyed as well. The thickness of the pinch weld and the material itself is to much for the seal. It still pulls the seal away from the window along the top corners outside. This also pushes the trim away some as well. It is not a look that I like. It annoys me enough that I have been thinking about pulling it out and putting the Bow headliner back in. We could increase head room by adjusting the mounting of the bows and give it a more original look. I just don’t Think that it’s worth the money. I expected a much better all around fit.
 
Good news and bad news. Bad news is that you need to use almost twice the normal amount of butyl sealer to seal the rear window to keep it from leaking when using this headliner. The good news is that it no longer leaks.

Keep in mind that this is a Grande/coupe so the fastback may fit perfectly. But if you have a coupe and are looking at installing a one piece headliner, read everything that I have dealt with and then decide if that’s what you want.

Summary: The headliner itself looks great when installed, but that’s just the big piece. You will have to use heat to form the A-Pillar trim As well as trim it to fit after it’s formed if you want to mount it under the a-pillar wind lace to get a clean look. This ABS is much thicker than your stock headliner so a deeper windlace is needed. And your rear window seal is not gonna fit properly which will affect your trim as well. My final thought is that for the cost, it is not worth it. If you want more headroom then look at finding a fabricator to make you custom headliner bows.
 
Its strange, this thread is actually about the NPD/CJ Pony one piece headliner:


The people there are upset with how poorly it fits side to side(having to use deep windlace) and praise the MTF headliner as the solution which they say has an almost perfect fit, so its possible they either just didn't care about the trim piece fitment, or maybe you just unlucky and got one that fit bad. Luckily I don't have to make a decision anytime real soon(still in sandblasting stage) but I thought you might be interested to see other people's experience with them.
 
Yeah. I have seen that others have good luck with them. Mostly it has been with fastback’s and with rear windows that have been installed in cars for a while. I have Noticed that a lot of the people who love the fit also don’t mind the A-Pillar trim to sit on the outside of the windlace on the A-Pillar. I think the best thing any company can do to truly market their product is to show detailed photos of it completely installed in a vehicle.
But this was just my experience with their headliner. Not saying this is how they will all fit, but I wanted others to have more information before anyone else spends $550 on a headliner expecting all rainbows and sunshine. Like I said previously, this is just my experience.
 
Yeah. I have seen that others have good luck with them. Mostly it has been with fastback’s and with rear windows that have been installed in cars for a while. I have Noticed that a lot of the people who love the fit also don’t mind the A-Pillar trim to sit on the outside of the windlace on the A-Pillar. I think the best thing any company can do to truly market their product is to show detailed photos of it completely installed in a vehicle.
But this was just my experience with their headliner. Not saying this is how they will all fit, but I wanted others to have more information before anyone else spends $550 on a headliner expecting all rainbows and sunshine. Like I said previously, this is just my experience.

Any way to NOT use the A-pillar trim?....I wouldn't want to use it to begin with...I like metal there, even if I needed to make some type of clip similar to the factory headliner clip that bolts to the A pillars at the top. I dont think I have ever seen any detailed in-process installation pics.
 
If you had the stock A-Pillar trim you would be great. I have not seen any nice aftermarket that still didn’t need to be modified in some way. And none of them companies show photos of it installed. I think it’s because it looks sloppy. At least to me it does.