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Removing the Sill Covers and Rocker Moulding

I'm going to assume that you have somehow got easy access to the underside of the car.  It might be able to do this without lifting... I'm not sure.

  1. Remove door sill covers
    • Lift the cover at the edge (I don't have a brilliant plastic tool set so a kitchen spatula was a useful substitute.  Once outer edge is lifted pull it out at an angle. There are fixed clips at the back that is needs to be slid out from.
    • Remove the screws and small metal tabs
    • In all there will have been 6 little clips and 7 screws that should come out before proceeding
  2. Remove the rocker moulding (in my car this was part 420-853-856-A-GRU (RHS) and 420-853-855-A-GRU (LHS))
    • There are screws under the car and one in each of the 2 wheel wells.  I tried using a T30 torx bit clamped in a vice grip pliers and with each moulding I had one stubbord screw that was resolved with penetrating oil.
    • Remove the screw in the rear wheel well
    • Remove the screw in the front wheel well
    • Remove the screws underneath and you should have this collection of screws now

  3. Lever the moulding out
  4. Reverse it all to put it back in, but beware of the this metal clip:

    it's very easy to push it out of place as you slip the moulding back on...

 

I suppose the first question must be why you would want to do this...  In my case a local fitment centre tried to jack the car and the jack operator didn't properly check that he would clear the sills. There damage wasn't critical, but still it needed to be rectified.

This event has made me trust my own judgement and ability more again.  Logic and observation sometimes beats "professionalism". 

Some sites that I've seen say that you need to remove the rear wheel... this probably will make it easier, but it isn't necessary.  I didn't have torque wrench so torquing the wheel nuts after would have been an issue.