How To Remove Front Bumper Cover 2000-03 Nissan Maxima

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In this video, we're going to show you how to remove and reinstall the front bumper cover on this 2003 Nissan Maxima. It's pretty much the same for any 2000 to 2003 Maxima. Tools you'll need are a flat blade screwdriver, a Phillips screwdriver and a 10-millimeter socket with a ratchet and probably about a two-inch extension.

Here with the hood open, you want to remove four clips and you just use a flat blade screwdriver and press in under the middle and pry up the middle of the clip and then it comes out. I'll repeat that for the other three. I'll just fast forward. On these clips, you only want to pop the center up about an eighth of an inch. Pop them up too high and then the clips will be hard to get out. You pop up the center about an eighth of an inch and then you can pull them or pry up the rest of the clip with your screwdriver.

Up underneath, on each side, there's a Phillips screw that's kind of close to the front wheel. You want to remove it on each side. In addition to that screw, there is a series of these clips again. I'll remove those. They're here and then they continue right across the front. I'll fast forward again. These clips could even be more challenging on the bottom because a lot of times they get sand and dirt stuck in them so they're hard to pry out. Using a little bit of penetrating oil on them sometimes helps. Also, if you just have to pry them out and end up breaking them you can get clips that are similar style usually at any hardware store.

Once you get the screw off from underneath here, what you'll want to do is just reach right in here and grab your inner fender and push it in and pull it down. Then there's another Phillips screw or 10-millimeter bolt right up there. Then looking further is a little difficult here. You've just got to pull the inner fender out of the way and then you can see in further there's another bolt. It's hard to show it to you. There it is. I'm going to speed up as I remove that first 10-millimeter bolt. Then I'm going to use a screwdriver and a rag and pry out each of my side marker lights and disconnect them just by pressing a little tab and pulling on the harness. Then again with a 10-millimeter socket and ratchet and you can access it through that hole where the parking light was. Remove that second bolt. Do that for both sides.

I've got both bolts and the lights out on each side. One thing to keep in mind is the fog lights. I'm going to bring my bumper cover forward and to do that I'll reach down in. There's a connector for the fog lights. There's a little button on it. Pull the bumper cover right off.

Once you've done whatever you need to do with the bumper cover off . as you can see, maybe you can tell on this car, we put a new set of headlights in it . put the bumper cover back on. Put it up in place. If you have fog lights, reconnect the fog lights. Then raise the bumper cover up in place and put a couple of the top clips in place to hold it.

Continuing to work at a feverish pace, put both the side bolts back up in and through and make sure that you get the sides secured correctly, as well as put both front side marker lights back on. Once you get everything bolted together to make sure you push the inner fender back in where it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be in behind the lip around the bumper cover. Now you can see I actually take the lower plastic panels and push them up onto the top of the lower lip of the bumper cover. What you don't see off-camera is that I took all the clips and sprayed a little bit of penetrating oil on them, cleaned them out and got them to work. You basically just kind of have to work them back and forth until they will push in and clip in easily. Then you secure all those clips. Make sure you put in the screws that go on the edge near the wheels on the lower side. Put those back in each side and you're all set.

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