How to Replace Grille 2001-04 Ford Escape

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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the front grille on this 2002 Ford Escape, same as any 2001 to 2004. Obviously, you can do this if your grille is broken or if you wanted to upgrade to the XLT style with the chrome edge around the side. It's a pretty easy process, although you do have to remove the bumper cover, but that is not that difficult. Tools you'll need are a short Phillips screwdriver and a 10mm socket with a ratchet.

You're going to remove a 10mm bolt here and here to start. Fast forward, here, as I use a 10mm socket and ratchet to remove those two bolts. This is pretty much what I'll do throughout the video, I'll show you the step and then I'll fast forward through me doing it.

Now you can see I have the car raised up off the ground. You don't need to raise the car off the ground. It just certainly makes it a lot easier to film. There's going to be a series of Phillips clips, so here's one of the clips. Use a Phillips screwdriver to lightly try and turn this. The center should come out. Then when the center comes out, the whole clip will pop out. There are three on the side here. There are three on the other side as well as a couple right up under here, underneath your grille. Here again, we'll fast forward as I remove the rest of those clips.


Once you get those out, then there are two more. You pull this back and it's probably a little difficult to see, but up in there, there is another one of those little Phillips clips. If you feel up in here with your hand, you'll feel the head of it. The best strategy for these is actually just pull firmly down on them and the clips will break free.

Now there are a series of 10mm bolts under here: one there, one there, there's a few up under here and on the other side. I'm going to fast forward through removing these, because these bolts are up underneath a lot of times they're rusted from salt and sand and whatnot. They'll be difficult to get apart and you can see as I went through. In the previous shot, one of them was broken off and you may break one or two off, but do your best to get them out. For one of them, I actually go back, spray on some penetrant, wait, and see if the penetrating oil will help. If you break one or two of them off, it's not the biggest thing. You can put it back together with just one or two of them missing.

You can see as I get the last bolt broken free, the bumper cover is about to basically come right off. You can see I've got the bumper cover off now. If your vehicle does have fog lights, then at this point, before you pull the bumper cover too far off, you would want to reach inside and just disconnect each fog light.

To get the fascia off, there's two 10mm speed nuts on here. You're going to have to lift up on the speed nut as you twist it counterclockwise and it comes off. Once you have those off, then it's just a matter of taking away these tabs and pulling them off of them, and your grille comes out.

My original is fine shape, so I'm going to reinstall it but you would want to take this. Again there's two 10mm speed nuts on here. Remove those, and put your emblem on your new grille. Then reinstallation is just a matter of . there's tabs on the fascia that you want to make sure your grille slides under, like that and make sure everything is locked on so you have to push it against the fascia this way and also just make sure all this goes together correctly.

With these speed nuts, you press them on and lock them. I'm going to speed through this a little bit. At this point, the first thing you want to do is make sure that all your clips are out, especially those clips you had to reach in up underneath. Make sure those are out of the bumper cover. Then, if you have fog lights, reconnect them and then have your two bolts ready for the top and put the bumper cover back in place and just finger tighten those two top bolts to hold it.

Now go up underneath and just make sure that the black lower fascia overlaps the gray part of the fascia. On my vehicle, the center bolt was still there so I just put that in and preliminarily tightened it up to hold things in place.

Next, you're going to put all the clips back in and you want to set them up like this, have the screw just inserted a little bit so that you can push them in place and then, obviously, do the ones up underneath first, push them into the fascia first and then up into the fender and lock them in place. Obviously, repeat for the other side as well. Keeping the work pace going, I'm going to put the clips up in underneath the grille and then I'm going to start all the 10mm bolts for the bottom. Again, if one of these or if one or two of them break, it's not a big deal, you can put it back together with what you have. It's pretty much inevitable that if you have a car with quite a few miles on it that one or two of them will break. Then once you're done starting them in then tighten them up. Now here, I'm just putting the rest of those Phillips style pins back in that hold the sides of the wheel wells. Then finish off, by tightening up the two top bolts on each side of the grille.

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