How to Replace Grille 2002-03 Nissan Maxima

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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 2003 Nissan Maxima, pretty much the same for a 2000 to 2003 Maxima. Tools you'll need are a flat blade screwdriver, a Phillips screwdriver, and a 10 mm socket with a ratchet and a two inch extension. On our vehicle, the grille is okay and we actually come across a problem replacing it, so the video is not as complete as we'd like, but it will give you a good idea of how to do this repair.

Okay, with the hood open, you'll 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 1/8 of an inch, pop them up too high and then the clips will be hard to get out. You pop up the center about 1/8 of an inch and then you can pull them out or pry up the rest of the clip with your screwdriver.

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

Then 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 and then there is another either Phillips screw or 10mm bolt right up there. Then looking further, it's a little difficult here. You've got to just 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 10mm bolt, then I'm going to use a screwdriver and 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 the 10mm 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 lights out on each side. One thing to keep in mind is the fog lights so I'm going to bring my bumper cover forward, and as I do that, I'll reach down in. Again there's a connector for the fog lights. There's a little button on it. Unplug that one and pull the bumper cover right off.
Once you have the bumper cover off, there are three 10 mm nuts. Let's spray them down with some penetrating oil and let them sit for a bit. Fast forward here as I attempt to get those three nuts off, and you'll see what I mean in the next scene when I say attempt to get them off."� What's happening here with mine is I was only able to get one of the three nuts off. You can see from the back, and if you've seen the pictures of the front of the car, this grille is in fine shape, so I don't want to break it taking it out. What happened is these metal studs that the nuts go on are molded into the grill. On these two side ones, the metal studs just started spinning in the grille so it's not going to come apart easy. If your grille was broken, basically what I would suggest is just take a good pair of pliers or locking pliers and just rip these studs right out to get the old grille out. Since my grille is in good shape, I'm not going to break it up just to show you that, but basically what you want to do to get the grille out is take these three nuts off and they come off good. If they come out okay, then that's fine. If not, you can force them off, basically. Once you have those three studs off, there are clips down here that you push up on, then push up and then push on your grille out: one, two, three, and a fourth one there. You can see my grille will push out, but, again, since my grille is still in decent shape, I don't want to break it all up. These nuts won't come off so I can't take it out.

The new grille from 1A Auto, if you have a broken grille, is going to have the studs in it. It's going to have the tabs. You just put it in, make sure you lock all these tabs all the way right in and then reinstall those three 10mm nuts and then you can put the bumper cover back on.

Once you've done what you need to do with the bumper cover off, as you can see or 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, and 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 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, 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 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 have to work them back and forth until they will push in and clip in easily and then you secure all those clips. Make sure you put 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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