Let me start off my saying that there are a lot of pieces related to this project, likely more than you’d expect to see. When you consider that the A, B, C, and D pillars all need to be changed, in addition to the sun visors and the handles; there are certainly a bunch of pieces to be careful with. This is especially true considering that there were only 11 screws total in the removal; which means that everything else is held in place with clips. This means that you won’t necessarily need many tools to complete the project, but you will certainly need some patience with the clips. Must have tools, IMO, are below.
-T25 Torx driver/bit
-Phillips head screwdriver
-Right angled flat head screwdriver
-Small flat head screwdriver
-ECS/Schwaben 5 piece trim removal kit
-Needle nose pillars
-Flashlight
I started with dropping the sunroof. You’ll need to remove it to be able to get to the sliding sunshade panel, as well as the clips that hold the headliner to the black frame that sits on the top side of the sunroof opening. This was much easier than I had anticipated. I first tilted the sunroof up, and then you remove the two accordion style covers on either side of the sunroof. These are just held on with molded plastic clips, so feel free to just slip your finger, or a small trim tool into the opening toward the back of these covers and it will pull right off.
This will expose six T25 screws, three on each side of the sunroof. Simply remove these, and then get out of the car and gently pull the glass out of the frame. I put my sunroof panel in the trunk for safe keeping.
Once the sunroof panel has been removed, you will be looking at the top of the sliding sunshade. Make sure the sunshade is slid all the way forward, and you’ll be able to see 4 small philips head screws holding the sunshade to the 4 track runners that keep the sunshade in place. Remove these 4 screws, as well as the track runners by gently pulling the runners toward the middle of the car. The sunshade will easily slide forward out of the top of the sunroof opening after this.
This completes all of the work you’ll be doing outside the car until you reassemble later. This is a good time to put down the back seats, and then put the front seats all the way forward, and at a 45-degree angle to maximize space. That said, there is no need for electrics anymore, nor do you want to hit one of the side or curtain airbags while removing the A, C, & D pillars, so take this time to disconnect the battery. SERIOUSLY, DO THIS.
Next I chose to remove the grab handles, which I can honestly say were the worst part of this process. Even though I had an appropriate right angle flat head screw driver, it was still very difficult to get the plastic anchor style pins out of the metal clips that hold the grab handles in place in the body of the car. Audi calls for a right angle flat head like the one pictured below, labeled as a “special hook #3370”. You need to fold down the grab handle, and then hook a right angled screwdriver, or another hook type tool, in the small gap between the anchor pin on the outside that covers the metal clip, and the body of the grab handle. Once it’s in that gap, be sure to continue to pull out/down, while working the tool further into the gap. This is the only place where I broke something, and its because I wasn’t deep enough into the gap while pulling, so the cover broke. I got 6 of 8 of these out without breaking them. Repeat for the 3 remaining grab handles.
*Not my image
I then focused on the sun visors; which were super easy. Just use a small, thin trim tool to separate the anchor pin cover from the anchor bar side of the sun visor. Once you get in between the cover and the remaining piece of the visor bar, you can pull it straight out of the metal clip that holds the visor into the body of the car.
Next you will need to gently pull and twist the sun visor out of the body to expose the vanity mirror wires. The wires are clipped into the visor, so be careful to gently pull these out of the opening in the body. Once completed, the sun visor will be free.
Next you will need to remove the sun visor clips. To do so, use a small and thin trim removal piece to separate the anchor cover from the sun visor clip that sits behind it. Once you get the cover separated from the clip, just continue to pull until the cover and clip come out of the body. Below is a picture of the anchors from the back side. Repeat for the other side.
Next remove the front dome lights, map lights, and sunroof radial controller. Pop open the sunglasses holder, and remove the single T25 screw that holds it to the roof of the car.
Disconnect all of the wires for the two map lights, the dome lights, the sunroof controller, and the homelink module.
After the dome lights, I chose to remove the rearview mirror to get it out of the way for later. I used a small trim tool to separate the wire cover from the mirror. You can pop it off after that.
Then you gently turn the mirror to remove it from the window, and disconnect the wires to free the mirror.
Next I turned my attention to the A pillars. Take a small trim tool, or flat head screw driver to open the plastic cover that says airbag on it. I found that it was easiest to open this cover by using a small trim tool in the middle of the cover from the windshield side, or top, of the plastic cover to expose the a single T25 screw that holds the top of the A pillar to the body of the car.
*Not my image
Once removed, use a larger trim removal tool to pull the 2 remaining clips that hold the A pillar in place. Below is a picture from the back side of the driver’s side A pillar to get an idea of where the clips are. Yellow is the T25 behind the air bag cover. It is very important to be careful here, as the airbag modules are just behind these trim pieces.
Once completed, repeat for the other side.
I then turned to the B pillars. I started by moving the front seats all the way forward to expose the bottom contact point for the seat belt connection to the seat frame. Remove the plastic cover to expose the locking mechanism. Once out of the way, you can easily unlock and unclip the seat belt from the frame.
The B pillars are not held on with any screws, so this was a bit of a dicey section. The plastic seems so flimsy, so it’s hard to gauge how hard to pull. I used a large trim removal tool and wedged it between the lower B pillar trim and the upper B pillar trim, and pulled first toward the front of the car, and then toward the back to unclip the plastic clips on the back side.
Once the bottom pulls out of the locking position, you can simply pull down on the upper B pillar trim to pull it out of the car. You’ll have to fish the seat belt out of the slider to fully remove the B pillar.
Next I removed the D pillar trim, or the trim on either side of the rear window. Note that you can’t remove the C pillar trim around the small back side windows until the headliner is dropped from the roof, so we’ll get to that later. To remove the D pillar trim, just wedge a small trim tool in between the meeting point of the D pillar, C pillar, and the headliner.
Once you have an opening, gently separate the D pillar from the body of the car by removing the two clips pictured below. Once unclipped, you can pull the D pillar toward the front of the car while simultaneously turning it toward the middle of the car to unclip the tails that clip the lower portion to the rear deck.
Repeat on the other side.
You can now focus on unclipping the headliner from the roof. There are 4 clips that hold the headliner to the roof above the rear window; which is the best place to start. These clips would be very difficult to remove if you left them until last, because the weight of the headliner would further restrict the already limited space between the rear window and the back of the headliner.
Once released, you can focus on the clips surrounding the sunroof opening frame.
*Not my image
There are 4 clips on the front side of the frame, 3 on the passenger’s side, 5 on the rear side, and 3 on the driver’s side. I used the trim piece below, because it gave me the most leverage to unclip these stubborn clips from the frame. This can be difficult, because you’re trying not to bend the headliner, unless you don’t care.
Audi suggests using a T10039, or a “clean release lever” to undo these clips. I didn’t have one, but the trim tool worked great.
Continue to work your way around until you’re able to free the headliner from the roof of the car.
Once completed, the headliner should be resting on the rear deck and the front head rests. I happened to have a chip in my windshield during this time, so I requested that my car insurance company do a replacement rather than a repair, because it is easiest to get this headliner out of the windshield opening.
Alternatively, you can remove the headliner piece from the car by removing all of the trunk trim pieces, and then gently tying a string around the headliner to slight bend the headliner for removal without creases. I didn’t take this route, so I can’t advise you on this, but the link should help you out.
Lastly, you can remove the C pillars once the headliner is at least dropped, or removed from the car. To remove the C pillars, remove the black plastic anchor that was hidden behind the headliner.
Once removed, you can use a trim tool to undo the three clips that hold the rest of the C pillar to the body of the car. Once unclipped, simply pull toward the center of the car. Repeat on the other side.
Side note: I wanted to show a picture of the radio antenna fin from the back side. Some have removed this to vinyl the roof, so this may be helpful. You should be able to remove the D pillars, and the clips at the rear of the head liner to gain access to this, depending on how small your hands are. I did not have a need for this.
Once completed, you can follow all of the steps in reverse to put it all back together. Be sure to double check to ensure that all the clips are in place on the rear side of each trim piece before reassembly. Additionally, be sure to take your time when during reassembly to ensure that all of the clips are fastened the way they were when you removed them; the last thing you want is to have to redo everything because of a missed clip. A helpful hint, the clips that attach to the sunroof frame to the headliner are easier to reassemble if the clip is on the headliner first during reassembly, and then clipped to the sunroof frame to lock it in place. The other way around was too hard to securely clip into place for me.
The whole process took me about 6 hours. I took my time to take a few pictures, and to be as careful as possible to not break anything.
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Originally Posted by geojt72
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