Drooping headliner in minivan - what to do?

Actually you got only about 2 years out of the clearcoat, it seems to me.
(unprotected by wax, that is) And I agree, it's too short. You have some
mitigating factors in that it's black (finish gets hotter) but it's probably
just one of those things. I suppose it's probably too late to say black
isn't an optimal color for areas that get a lot of sun. ;-)

Just for grins you might check the used car lots and advertisements
for other black '03 Dakotas and see if they have the same problem.
My guess is not. I suspect you just got a bad paint job on yours.

I know that the minivan's (at least) did have some paint problems for
a few years back in the 90s with certain colors. White seems to have
been one of those colors.

As for the headliner, that really is cheap to fix, as others have said. If
you often park outside in the hot sun you might take to leaving the
windows cracked to keep the interior temp down, that might help.

Your options on the clearcoat are:

1) Do nothing and keep wax on it, religiously. That will keep the
color coat intact and keep the body panels from rusting. The clear
will probably stop peeling but the whole thing will look like hell

2) use car polish, then wash carefully, then use a rattle-can to respray
the clear coat. It will look like hell. But you won't have to bother
continuing to keep wax on it. Like #1 this is a "preserve the body panels
from rusting" option.

3) wet-sand the areas that are peeling until smooth and all evidence of
the peeling is gone. Then scuff them and scuff outside of the areas with
a 3M grey scuff pad and scuffing gel (from any auto parts place) and respray
the color base coat (several times) then the clearcoat, feathering it into
the
existing finish. This will look less like hell, and you can also use
rattle-cans
but the color won't match the existing paint. This is kind of a cross
between
a decent repaint job and a looks-like-hell-but-preserves-the-body job,
and I think it's nutty since it requires a whole lot of effort and the
results
look crummy. But people do it.

4) Have a body shop do a proper repaint.

Since this is an '03, you probably have enough mileage on it that you would
take a loss selling it before it starts falling apart, meaning your probably
gonna
keep it until you have used it up. In other words the economics of it make
it
pointless to do anything other than #2, unless you have some kind of vanity
streak. WIth any luck, sometime in the next 5 years you will be struck by
someone in a fender-bender and you can get their insurance to pay for a
repaint.

To be perfectly honest, I think clearcoats on most cars are completely
stupid.
This is one of those "new car buyer attractant" things they do. It's not
very
utilitarian. I think for most cars it's just a lot better to layer on
additional color
coats, forget the clear coat, and tell people if they want the car to
continue
looking good they need to wax it regularly. That's what they did in the
olden
days and it worked pretty well. Of course it limits the color choices, but
shit man, you bought a black vehicle - how many different color variations
are needed for black!!!

Ted

 

Possibly true, but the truck looked absolutely gorgeous when it was new.
Still looks fairly decent, as long as you don't look at the roof.

Yes, I've already priced the headliner and the glue. First job is
removing the old headliner and shell. Getting the shell in and out may
be a trick, as it's a 2-door CC.

Actually, there are other issues with the paint aside from the bubbling
clearcoat. Hood and both doors are scratched from debris blowing across
in Hurricane Wilma a couple years ago, and there was also an incident
with a fallen ladder (roofers didn't tie ladder to the house, and it
blew down into the truck in heavy wind) resulting in some minor body
damage to the roof and driver's side door.

So all in all, I'm going to leave the exterior as is and give the truck
to my son next year, at which point I'll buy somthing else.

Not many, but the black looks simply awesome when it's all cleaned up
and shined. That said, it's probably the most impractical color to own.

Thanks for the feedback, Ted.