Well, the panel swap happened over the weekend - XCAPEPOD is now Rally Red! It took about 9 hours for my wife and I to do the job being extra careful (too far from dealer to mess up), cleaning some pieces as we went, and being completely inexperienced. Knowing what we know now, we could probably do it in 5 or 6 hours. Most of the instructions available cover removing the panels, but not all the little items it takes to swap panels. I must say the power mirror connectors and fuel filler cup removal (simple now) took some time. We broke one of the side skirt clips and one of the clips on the air intake. Also, removing the plastic grommet from the driver's door is apparently unnecessary with power locks and a good way to ruin the grommet/scuff the door plastic.
The only casualty was my windup key. I broke one of the mounting bolts removing it from the white tailgate. I'm working on a replacement bolt now, but I'll be keyless (others would say clueless...) for a little while.
If I had made an instructional video, it would have had a first part showing you how not to do something
, then how to actually do it. But, I did take pictures of the process and put them in a crude slide show. For those that are interested, you can find it here:
http://www.fernatt.com/files/smart_panel_swap.wmv
Linear Mode
