Anyone? I have a little plastic squeak noise there I'd like to take care of.
Thanks! :smile:

 

I had a conversation yesterday with the Service rep at the local dealer (MINI of Mt. View) about this in connection with a windshield replacement. The A Pillar plastic trim is held on with plastic clips as well as some adheasive. When you replace the windshield, you stand a chance of breaking the piece when removing it. The dealer includes a replacement in the estimate for a windshield swap.

He said that over time the adheasive/clips will become brittle and they often have to replace them. If all is good, they clean up the A-Pillar and trim underside surface and use a slow-curing BMW adheasive to re-attach it. The car cannot be driven for a day while it cures.

There may be some posts in NAM for a How To on removing it, but if your car is under warranty, the dealer should do it.......unless there's some issue here.

You can get the clips from Brian at Classic MINI parts and possibly the BMW adheasive as well; but for a specific "how to" do a search here and check the How to's at Bridger's site

 

shoot....i'd really rather not go to the dealer if I can help it.....

 

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, then do this. Open the door. Pull back the rubber trim (not glued into place, it's press fit) along the vertical portion of the pillar. This reveals four screws that secure in the shiny black plastic trim piece. Remove the four screws then carefully remove the shiny black trim piece. When I had my first windshield done, the joker pried the black trim piece off breaking the flanges with screw holes becuase he had no clue that it was secured on with screws. They had to replace that one piece.

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Happy Motoring!

 

Oh sorry!! I should have clarified...
I meant the light gray piece on the INSIDE of the car and it says 'airbag' on it. It seems to be squeaking up near the windshield.

 

Dennis, I would not attempt to remove the inner A-pillar cover as the airbag resides there. Also your problem does not come from there, trust me. The MINI's cabin has interesting sound acoustics and when you hear a noise you think it come from one place but in reality it comes from another. Your "squeak" likely comes from the plastic trim piece that runs on top of the dashboard (Forward section) at the very base of the windshield. If you press it gently you will hear some squeaks and plastic clip groans. Remember the "grease" treatment I recommend to you a few weeks ago? Well you need to find a way to remove this trim piece that runs the width of the dashboard and grease all the clips.

I repeat, do not venture into removing the inner A-pillar trim cover or any interior pillar plastic cover for that matter. You will create an airbag problem and numero dos, you will create more squeakes and rattles than you had at first.

 

well, i already removed the front passenger side airbag trim over the glove compartment. Had similiar squeaks coming from the alloy patina trim. I removed all of it from the dash inlcuding the main top dash pad and lubed everything up and that cured it. Now if i press on the A-pillar trim i get a similiar noise so i know that's where it's coming from this time. So i do know that's what is making the noise, and removing a plastic cover shouldn't detonate the airbag....i hope. But i could always remove the battery cable to make sure.
Other than this one little intermittent squeak, my mini is quiet as a mouse. So i'd really like to fix it.

oh and thanks for that grease tip. worked like a beauty!

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