How do you remove the plastic rivets on the top of the front bumper? I know the center pops up. How do remove the rivet?

 

Pull up the center, but not too much otherwise it will spread the bottom out again and make it hard to remove, so just pull up the center slightly then pry up the bottom piece and it will come out.

 

I think I must reiterate this. As my friend told me the same thing but I couldn't conceive of how it worked. The result? Two broken caps. They cost 25 cents each at the dealer, but who wants to go and get hassled by the service dept?

Ok. I'll do my best to explain. Take a flathead screwdriver and pry the center piece up. Now what you'll notice is if you pull on it firmly with your finger, it will pop straight up and won't go anymore. Now at this point when it is all the way up, push on it so it goes halfway down. *THIS IS KEY*. It MUST be 1/2 because this is where the "claws" at the tip of fastener will be able to close in to the diameter of the hole. At this point, you grab the base and make sure the top part stays placed halfway the whole time. Then pull directly up or try to wiggle the base a little bit. They come out easy. Do NOT use pliers, you do not need them. If they wont' come out, you've positioned the too far. All you need is your flathead screwdriver and your hands.

 

Here.. I know this sucks, but it took me like 10 minutes to draw, but it illustrates what I'm talking about.

This is what the fastener looks like now (before the cap is pried up). It is all black, but I colored the outside piece of the cap a gray color so you could see.


Now if you do what I said (extending the cap all the way up), it will look like this. Notice how the claw pieces are now widened (just like the picture above). This is because the tip of the cap has a ball at the end. The ball's diameter is as wide as the top of the cap. You can't pull the cap out because the claw's positions are the same. Because the ball is now "inside" the claws, you can't get the fastener out. This is because the claw diameter is now wider than the hole.


In order to remove it, you need to get the claws to close in without the cap's ball tip from going inside. It looks like this.


If you can do this for every cap, then the claws diameter is equal to that of the hole. Then you just pull up. Again.. no flaming please. I did these drawings in 10 minutes.

 

Thanks everyone. I was reluctant to apply too much force. Now that I know the trick they cane out very easily. Thanks again