Reinstalling rear seat headrests?

Richk · Oct 17, 2015

hi, just taken delivery of my 2nd Cali. Plumbed for black and very pleased.

I often thought I should remove the headrests in the rear to create a little more room. Found this on site

http://k3yak.com/remove-vw-t5-california-rear-head-restraints-headrest/
.....which details the how to.
My question is once the pins are hammered through to release the headrests can they be reinstalled when I sell in a few years time.

Any constructive comments greatly appreciated.

Hotel California · Oct 17, 2015

Once the pins are removed , the rear headrests can be put back in but stay lose...
When you hammer new pins in they will be back in place permanent .

Skylark2.0 · Oct 17, 2015

Why not just press the button and drop them back as they are designed to be used?

Hotel California · Oct 18, 2015

Skylark2.0 said:
Why not just press the button and drop them back as they are designed to be used?

Can you....?

Serious now , the headrest are more in the way then usefull .
We never have passengers in the backseat so they are useless , but in the way when taking out stuff from behind the booth over the rear seat .
Also when lowering the seat in bed position the headrests ( afther the drop you discribt) take in place underneeth the booth area.
By having them removed we don't have those problems anymore.

AlanC · Oct 18, 2015

Hmm, I started to remove the rear headrests this year, but the side covers are thin grey plastic and I snapped off the first one I tried to move. I didn't take it any further as I couldn't see how you can do this without breaking all of the side covers and then breaking the VW replacements (assuming they were available) when you came to reinstating the head rests.

We worked round them.

Alan

dfps · Oct 19, 2015

We have removed ours as we find that when they are folded back under the seat when the bed is down they take up a lot of space that can be used much better for rigid storage boxes.
If anyone is considering removing theirs I would strongly suggest using a hair dryer to warm up the plastic covers. Don't try doing it when its cold or you will almost definitely snap them. Even then you may struggle so we used a fine hacksaw blade to cut off some of the length of the plastic retaining lugs, leaving as much as possible behind to allow the plastic covers to be bent back and swivel allowing clear access to the retaining
pins.
The pins can be a little stubborn but do eventually tap through as long as the tool is narrower than the holes but strong enough to push the retaining pins out which as under tension in their holes.I used a hardened alloy nail---the type the use in Hilti guns which I ground the sharp tip flat on a grinder . I found an ordinary nail just to soft and it bent and I actually snapped the tip off a high carbon metal fine tipped drift punch which then got stuck in one of the holes-----DOH !!!
Eventually I managed to get the holes clear of the pins and said punch.

We keep our headrests in the bottom of the wardrobe and simply slide them back in if there is anyone sitting in the back ( rare ) and if we know there is definitely no-one going to be using the back seat we leave the headrests at home.

Good luck with it.

Shaun · Oct 20, 2015

After almost 2 years of "working around' the rear headrests I took the plunge tonight after reading this thread.
I followed the Kyak link above.
Half an hour and they were out!
Just got to get some 13mm Rubber grommets now for the holes.
It won't be difficult to re-fix them either if we ever need to.

Pete M · May 28, 2019

DO NOT TRY THIS MOD IF ...
You value the interior of your wagon!
As said above, the plastic end caps/covers need the tabs cutting off (which I didn't do) and heating, which I did with a hair drier rather than a heat gun but it just torn the cover in two as it needed to be bent too much to allow it to be removed out of the way so as to give room to remove the pins.
Next problem, no matter what I used as a punch (nail, centre punch, hardened bolt) the pin would not drift out and this was from the inboard facing pin so god knows how you get the outboard pin to release?
An additional caveat to this is I'm a qualified mechanical engineer that has built several of my own racing motorcycles and traveled overland unsupported through 60 counties on a motorcycle so well adapt at swinging tools.

Jay20cali · May 28, 2019

Never once felt the need to remove the headrests even when the boot is fully loaded when you put the bed down they don’t get in the way.

Hotel California · May 28, 2019

Pete M said:
DO NOT TRY THIS MOD IF ...
You value the interior of your wagon!
As said above, the plastic end caps/covers need the tabs cutting off (which I didn't do) and heating, which I did with a hair drier rather than a heat gun but it just torn the cover in two as it needed to be bent too much to allow it to be removed out of the way so as to give room to remove the pins.
Next problem, no matter what I used as a punch (nail, centre punch, hardened bolt) the pin would not drift out and this was from the inboard facing pin so god knows how you get the outboard pin to release?
An additional caveat to this is I'm a qualified mechanical engineer that has built several of my own racing motorcycles and traveled overland unsupported through 60 counties on a motorcycle so well adapt at swinging tools.

Thats why i let my very skilfull VW dealer do this for about 30€ , i never drive with passengers in the rear so the headrests are useless to me , they now sit in a box stored in my garage .
There's not a single thing damaged and the headrests simply slide back in place if needed , the pin can be re-fitted if i ever sell-up the Cali for the next owner . No one will know or notice .