I had these lower sill cladding panels off a couple of years ago when I did some rust repair on my 2008. But I couldn’t find anything then or now by way of instructions or guidance on how to actually do that. So I took some pictures as I went in case this helps others work out how to do this without breaking anything. I was meaning to get under there and apply some rust-proofing (WoolWax) anyway.
This first one shows how the rear wheel-arch piece fits into the little ‘corner’ piece under the rear door. There is a clip affixed to the car that holds both pieces on, and the ‘arch’ piece has a little ‘pin’ that fits in that little hole in the lower ‘corner’ piece. You need to pull the back edge of the arch piece away from the car a bit and get the pin to come free, while trying not to rip the adhesive from the top edge of it (the arch piece).
Here it is from the under-side:
In this one you can also see the white clip holding the arch and lower corner onto the car. You can also see the ‘hidden’ clip holding the centre of the ‘corner’ panel in place, and the hole in the car that it’s meant to fit in to. There is supposed to be a plastic ‘pin’ to go through the neighbouring hole but the impact broke mine off 😔. The clip slides into its mount on the corner panel ‘sideways’ – I think it’s supposed to be in the corner panel like this when you install it as I can’t think of how it would be possible to get the long pin into the neighbour hole and also slide the corner panel sideways… Consequently I think it’s supposed to just either come free or break when you remove this panel which is a bit scary. The <
This one shows the very bottom of that corner piece where it attaches with another of those little round white clips into the sill piece. The impact broke this one on me and I had to replace it.
This one shows the interface between the front edge of the corner piece and the back edge of the long sill piece. There is a little tab that slides into that slot on the sill piece, and the sill piece has these long fins that slide into special slots on the corner piece. The top of this picture shows the edge that matches the bottom of the car.
Here’s a closer one of those fins. In this one you can also see the (slightly bruised) square clip slot in the top of the corner piece. We’ll see more of those in a minute.
Here’s the corner piece ‘on edge’
and the sill piece ‘on edge’
At the front of the car the assembly/disassembly process is still a bit of a mystery to me…. the VIDA directions are useless and I am still a bit amazed I got this off without breaking it. After undoing the wheel arch protector things (screws) the little clips seemed to come out pretty easy. There is an alignment pin to help get it in the right spot before you whack the clips back in to place also.
I will continue with more pictures in a comment…