As some of you may know, I decided to paint all my trim to match the body color and in response I've had a few people ask me how to remove the door panels. So if you don't want to pay the dealer to replace your trim, here is my little do it yourself for removing the door panels. I don't have Photoshop or anything so I couldn't circle where are the screws and clips are, but you should be able to see them in the pictures and when you're actually taking the panel off. Hope it helps. I would also like to thank Rudy, his TIS manuals helped a lot.

1.) Disconnect the battery.



2.) Remove the screws holding the door in place and remove the track lighting.







3.) Either use your hands, a plastic wedge, or a screwdriver wrapped in a cloth to get underneath the door panel in order to pull toward yourself and pop all of the clips holding the door in place. Be sure not to pull the door panel off more than 5-6 inches or you may break some of the wires. I would recommend using your hands to pull of the door panel and start at the clip underneath the tweeter, then work clockwise all the way around the door. This worked best for me. Otherwise, anywhere along the bottom is also a good starting point but you're probably going to need something to pry the door out.



4.) Undo all of the electrical and mechanical connections.



5.) Take door panel off



6.) Use something that will eat away the locktight that BMW put all over the trim nuts and bolts.
7.) Remove nuts.
8.) Slide trim upward and toward you.
9.) Slide in the new trim and do everything in reverse.

Sorry I don't have any pics of actually removing the trim, but that's the easy part, it's getting the door panel off that's a little tricky.

 

Now my question for you is "Is the airbag light on?", and did you use double-side tape to hold your crossover in the last picture?

 

No, and no. No airbag warnings and the stereo shop that installed everything glued them in place. I wasn't exaclty happy about that after finding out that's how they did it, but so far I've had no problems with the front speakers at all so I guess I'm ok with it. It's just the damn buzzing in the rear speakers when my headlights are on that is still annoying me. Although I'm dropping the car off tomorrow to try a few things regarding that, so hopefully they'll figure it out.

 

Is the Air Bag light supposed to be ON when doing the door panel removal ?

Thanks,

 

Great instruction with picture !!!

 

Nothing should be on when you're actually removing the door panel, if it is then you didn't disconnect the battery. my530i was asking if it came back on after I put everything back together and reconnected the battery, and the answer is no, it didn't come on, which should mean that everything is fine. If the light came on that would indicate that it's either not fine, or the computer would need to be reset.

 

Hello,

do you have after-marked-speakers in your front-door-panels or do you just have crossovers and additional tweeters?

Which installation depth are the speakers in you panels? - my garage told me that my GZRC10 (which have 60mm depth) don't fit. The OEM have 46mm.

Thanks, Cu Lanikus

 

I have Focal 100KP's and they fit fine. They're about 40mm deep. The stereo shop that installed them had to add a small bracket because the screw placement was a little different, but other than that there's no problem.

 

Great! That helps a lot! Never seen a naked door so I have an idea when retrofitting the mirror lamps.

Painting a round the screws and clips would be make this pics perfect

 

Is somebody got a file pdf to see how thes panel is fixed .