I was lucky to be washing my car and not on the highway when the roof moulding over the A pillar fell off, the four inch piece of trim that wraps from front to side, sliding into the side moulding and over the front moulding. the snapper let go as the tab that slides into the side trim broke.

in my experienceforget trying to buy one a new one as it is not sold seperately. the four inch section is considered part of the full side mouldingforget trying to find a used one and keep in mind it is now a twenty year old piece of plastic and yours just failedforget trying to just snap it back on without pulling the clip out of the car!

i watched this video to figure it out

so i popped the clip only i used needle nose plyers . way easier than this dude
the moulding fits very loosely on that single stupid clip so i fixed that and it is not coming out.
the tab that slide into the side moulding was broken so i carefully a created a new tab

this moulding piece is held on with pressure . pressure against the car, pressure on the clip so you have to really give it a go but it gives the resounding snap when it sets.

 

Little known fact, the R56 roof trim fits on an R53 and eliminates the A-pillar roof trim that always departs company with the MCS.

 

FWIW, if you pop the trim off the side, you can slide the front piece back onto that plastic **** and don’t have to tear it apart. It has a slot with a largish hole at the rear end to slip over the ****.

However, I think my trim is three millimeters too long and the front piece might just pop off again.

If it does, I think I might use an Exacto saw and shorten the side trim piece by three mm.

Peter

 

My trim did pop off again so I disassembled it and cut 3mm off the front end of the long roof rail. Since the **** slot on the front piece has a slot with a big hole at the rear, I could then fit the hole in the trim over the ****. But since the long trim piece is 3mm shorter, I can slide the short piece further on the slot and away from the hole.

I tried cutting the trim with an X-Acto saw but the steel was too hard to cut. I ended up cutting it with a thin 0.020” disc cutter/grinder on the Drexel.

Peter

 

I'm in the process of replacing the long roof rails on my R53. I didn't lose the short trims on the leading edge - the black coating on the rails was simply deteriorated from 16 years of UV. Is there any need to replace that clip which fits into the "keyhole" of the short trim? As ptkacik mentioned: don't you just slide the trim over the existing clip?

 

Yes trim slides in / snaps in

a good vid on YouTube…

 

Yes, it just slides on but in my case, it didn’t slide far enough and just fell off again. By shortening the long part, the short part slid further onto the **** and now holds tight.

Good luck,
Peter