How to Replace Armrest Clamshell 2003-12 Volvo XC90

Hey, friends. It's Len here at 1A Auto. Today, we're working on our 2004 Volvo XC90. This is the all-wheel drive version, and we're going to be replacing the armrests, little clamshell. It's going to be very easy. I can do it, you can do it, too. If you need this or any other part, you can always check us out at 1aauto.com. Thanks.

We're going to go ahead and replace this armrest with our brand new quality 1A Auto armrest. Set this aside. Open up our armrest here. Put that down. We have a couple of screws. We're going to remove that, that, that, and that. To do that, I'm going to use my Torx Bit. See what size, T10. Looks like a little star. It's very small. Just take them up here, you can start with whichever screw you'd like. You do you boo boo. That's what our screw looks like. I'm just going to put it right there for now.

There we are. See if we can give this a little wiggle, get it to break free. There we are. Now that we've got the upper armrest off, I'm just going to come right over here. We're going to take out this screw right here and that one right there, and it's going to take off the upper portion of our clamshell. All these screws are the same, so there's really not too much you have to worry about, mixing them up, misplacing them, whatever. Put that there. Just grab this, slide it off of there.

Okay, friends. A quick product comparison for you over here. Right here, we have the upper portion of the clamshell for our armrest inside our 2004 Volvo XC90 all-wheel drive version. Over here, we have our brand new quality 1A Auto part. Both these parts are the exact same. You've got this part right here. This is the part that mounts it on, and then it opens and closes. Of course, you got your little pull thing right here, the handle, and then right up here is where the armrest itself is going to mount onto. It's got all the screw holes already there for you. It's the exact same as this one. Well, backwards, but exact same nonetheless. You even got new little rubber pads there. With that said, I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be a quality part to install into the vehicle, so I'm going to go ahead and do it. If you need this or any other part, you can always check us out at 1aauto.com. Thanks.

Inside of the clamping area of the upper clamshell, you can see that there's little pitons that come through this way. There's two of them, one here, one down there. They go through the holes in the back of these, so when you bring this in, they're going to sit in the holes. It's going to hold it nice and level so the holes all line up for you and you should be able to get it in fairly easily. We're just going to do that, give it a little squeeze, here a little clip. It could practically stay like that, but hey, why not? Let's go ahead and put in some of these screws. We got them, we didn't lose them. There we are. Get this one. Nice and snug. Nice and snug. That functions well. I like it. Now, let's go ahead and put this on.

You got this area right here and here. There's a hole there and there. Those are all going to line up with the holes that are in the armrest itself. We'll open it up and line everything up. Get a nice little squeeze. It should want to sit on there fairly well. Here we are. Take our little screw. It's a small screw, so getting it started with my fingers. I'm not going to tighten that up yet. I want to do all four. I'm just going to get all four of them started in. Once all four are started, that'll be when we go ahead and snug them down.

Of course, you can use a ratchet for this or whatever you wanted to use. I prefer one of these little electric drivers. All four of them are started. Let me make sure I have this turned down. I don't want too much power. That one is bottomed out. I'm only screwing into plastic here, so you don't need to have too much pressure or torque. Last thing we want to do is strip out our new armrest.

There we are. Let's give it a try. Feels good. Very nice. This clip is down. Down the road we go. Easy peasy.

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