Toyota Corolla DIY

As a precaution, I began by disconnecting the battery so that there would be no chance of discharging the airbags when I removed the panel. It requires a 10mm socket. I sincerely doubt it would actually ever go off, but to be safe I took the extra 2 minutes.

Be warned, these panels scratch very easily. Be careful with them once they are out.

1) Take off the seat backs. Just pop the latches from the trunk to fold them over, and remove the two bolts on each seatback where it attaches to the hinge. It takes a 12mm socket.

You can pull the cloth from the seatbacks off the two little black pegs simply by pulling on it so it stretches around the head. This shot is after the cloth is pulled off. Don’t try to remove the pegs.

2) Remove the door sill covers.

Tuck your fingers under the inside edge at both the top and bottom, and pull outward a little.

It has a little nub on the inside that clips around the other panels. Once that is unclipped you can get your fingers in a the center of the top and bottom and pull straight upward.

Technically you could just yank upwards on it in the first place and it would pop off, but this works a bit cleaner. A couple shots so you can see what you are working with in terms of clips and holes.

3) Pull off the rubber weatherstripping from the now exposed bottom edge all the way around to the top left corner of the door so you can get it out of your way.

4) Remove the wheel well panel, the large one that runs along the seat. I started with the white snap toward the top. I found it easiest to put a long screwdriver in between the snap and the hole and turn it so that it would cleanly back the snap out. You can also just pry it with your fingers.

Then I pried out the blue snap toward the bottom.

Now you can remove the upper portion of the panel and take the whole thing out. There are 3 clips of sorts that need to come out. Pull the top of the panel toward the middle of the car. All the clips will remove in that direction, because the part of the panel that connects behind the seatback inserts at an angle.

You have to get the panel around the seatback hinge and out the door without resnapping the white or blue snaps. Here is what the panel looks like.

5) Remove the rectangular panel. Simply tuck your fingers behind the outside edge and pull toward the front of the car.

6) Remove the airbag panel. This one has 4 snaps throughout the panel. Start with the white and blue snaps at the edge.

Next slide your fingers along the top edge against the headliner to where the airbag logo is and pull outward a little to release the snap behind.

One more snap toward the very back, I used the screwdriver method to pop it.

Here is the back of the panel.

The bottom of the panel has plastic that fits into a channel that is built into the rear deck. Once the 4 snaps are released, simply pull the panel straight toward the front of the car. My picture of the channel connection sucks, sorry.

7) Repeat 1-6 on the opposite side, if you haven’t already been doing both sides. It is an exact mirror image.
Remove the rear deck. I didn’t take it out this time since I didn’t remove the passenger side, so I’ll simply explain it. Lift up on the edge and you will see white snaps. If I remember correctly, there are 3 of them in the approximate position that I circled, but you should be able to find them by just pushing up on the panel where the arrows are. Simply pry up each of the snaps, and pull the whole panel straight toward the front of the car. You will probably have to lift up a little while you pull.

I’d suggest buying the ~$10 speaker adapters from ebay to replace your speakers. The old speakers will unbolt very easily unlike the front speakers which were riveted. When I replaced mine, I ended up rigging them with zipties through the original holes and my speakers holes because I didn’t know I’d need an adapter plate- It worked, but isn’t great. I’ll be doing the adapters soon.