BMW 3-Series (E90 E92) Forum - View Single Post - Door kick plate interior piece came loose

txusa03 · 02-14-2007, 03:21 PM

hey KT9, sorry for the late reply but I do not subscribe to any thread (just dont have time nor space to get notification on all the thread I posted in). Best to pm me for future reference.

anyway back to topic. Yes, you can see now what a battle it is to but this trim back. Unfortunately, when I was involved in my own fight and frustration, I forgot to snap a few mug shot of the stubborn clip.

On with the reinstallation. If my memory is still good, i believed I had to removed the clips that got stuck on the car (not on the trim side). It is one hell of a fight to removed the stucked clip as well and lucky for me none of them broke so I was able to reuse them. Once all the clips are removed, what you want to do is place each clip onto the rail on the trim piece (the clip has a rectangular head and a pointy head. The rectangular head slide into the rail on the trim piece. Notice the clip will slide back and forth so dont worry if they move back and forth but just make sure they dont slide off the rail and fall to the ground.

Once you have all the clips in the rail on the trim, carefully (because the clip will slide off the rail if you make sudden movement) eyeball and align each clip onto the hole and just set it into the hole but dont snap it in completely and work your way to the next clip and align it by slightly moving the trim forward or backward (if you move too much, you dislodge the clip from the rail, hence you lost that battle and would have to start over again and that is why I suggest you dont snap the clip in because you might have to start over again and trust me you do not want to pull any clip out of the hole). You might have to do this several time before you get all 4-5 clips aligned with all 4-5 holes and when you do have all 4-5 clips lign up perfectly then you can put pressure on each clip to snap it into place and promise yourself never to take the trim off again. Hard for me to explain in words but hopefully you get the idea.

If you only have 1 clip looses (like OP) and the clip is stuck to the hole, then it is quite diffcult to get the clip to slide into the rail of the trim. Your only recourse is to remove the whole trim and pull out all the clip and use my above steps to put the trim back.

Again, I am not a bmw techie but that is how I was able to come out a winner. There might be another trick to this which I dont know.

best of luck.

02-14-2007, 03:21 PM	#10
txusa03 Major General 550 Rep 6,563 Posts Drives: TS330iPPSP6MT Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Planet Earth iTrader: (3)	hey KT9, sorry for the late reply but I do not subscribe to any thread (just dont have time nor space to get notification on all the thread I posted in). Best to pm me for future reference. anyway back to topic. Yes, you can see now what a battle it is to but this trim back. Unfortunately, when I was involved in my own fight and frustration, I forgot to snap a few mug shot of the stubborn clip. On with the reinstallation. If my memory is still good, i believed I had to removed the clips that got stuck on the car (not on the trim side). It is one hell of a fight to removed the stucked clip as well and lucky for me none of them broke so I was able to reuse them. Once all the clips are removed, what you want to do is place each clip onto the rail on the trim piece (the clip has a rectangular head and a pointy head. The rectangular head slide into the rail on the trim piece. Notice the clip will slide back and forth so dont worry if they move back and forth but just make sure they dont slide off the rail and fall to the ground. Once you have all the clips in the rail on the trim, carefully (because the clip will slide off the rail if you make sudden movement) eyeball and align each clip onto the hole and just set it into the hole but dont snap it in completely and work your way to the next clip and align it by slightly moving the trim forward or backward (if you move too much, you dislodge the clip from the rail, hence you lost that battle and would have to start over again and that is why I suggest you dont snap the clip in because you might have to start over again and trust me you do not want to pull any clip out of the hole). You might have to do this several time before you get all 4-5 clips aligned with all 4-5 holes and when you do have all 4-5 clips lign up perfectly then you can put pressure on each clip to snap it into place and promise yourself never to take the trim off again. Hard for me to explain in words but hopefully you get the idea. If you only have 1 clip looses (like OP) and the clip is stuck to the hole, then it is quite diffcult to get the clip to slide into the rail of the trim. Your only recourse is to remove the whole trim and pull out all the clip and use my above steps to put the trim back. Again, I am not a bmw techie but that is how I was able to come out a winner. There might be another trick to this which I dont know. best of luck. __________________ under construction!
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