skeptocrat

I made a real mistake getting my 2014 RX 350 with the tan interior. The floor and doorsills are filthy with only a few hundred miles on it. I am fixing the foot rest on the drivers side with a piece of spare carpeting and a custom plastic floor mat but the doorsills are still a problem

I could get the black color sill from Lexus or an after market stainless replacement. My problem is removing the standard one. The inside comes up easily but the part under the name plate does not. How are these removed and reinstalled?

corradoMR2

You just need to pry it up with your hands or a plastic tool (not to scratch the metal door sill underneath). That part is held by 4 round plastic clips (white). See this thread for a partial pic (will how you 2 of the 4) to help you understand how its held. Good luck.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/8367806-post1.html

kitlz

Take a look at the video on Sewell's website here. It'll show you how to remove and reinstall the sills. The key is to get the four clips loose by pulling the inner part of the sill up. You'll hear them release when you do it. Then check to make sure they're secure when you press the sill back into place.

Here's a picture of the sill removed. The black spots are where the clips secure into place.

gerber

I too have the parchment interior, and the scuffing also bothers me. I purchased the premium floor mats in black and thought about replacing the sills with black sills. In the end, I just decided to take care and not step on the sills when entering and exiting the vehicle.

UCSB

I removed my drivers side sill once. I picked up a set of plastic pry tools on Amazon. The pry lever will quickly lift up the sill and it will come loose ... surprisingly easy. You need to be very careful because you can easily damage the very flimsy stainless steel insert by bending it in the area of one of the retaining clips.

My parchment sills are just like new ... maybe because I never come in contact with them. But, my wife has had back surgery and can drag her foot across the sill in her car. I went to Home Depot and purchased a roll of plastic that has adhesive on one side. It can be found in their carpeting department and is normally used for temporarily protecting carpet. I just put this material on her door sill (and door). She can drag her foot across this as much as she wants. The sill never gets damaged and looks like new. I just replace the plastic every few months. The Home Depot product is not the best quality. There are much high quality products available, but they are more expensive.

skeptocrat

I have decided to replace the tan sills with the black ones but I have also taken a couple of other steps. First I purchased some Weather Tech custom floor pans to catch any dirt and fixed the standard carpet mats on top of this to catch water in bad weather. I also took a piece of carpet scrape for a custom interior shop and cut it to fit over the left foot rest to protect the tan floor there. It is also black and has some strips of Velcro glued to the back to keep it in place. All seems to work.

Thanks for all the ideas.

skeptocrat

The black sills arrived today (40% cheaper from Sewell than the dealer, I might add). And the first one is in. I am posting this because I found no satisfactory solution to my original problem - removing the old sills.

The videos suggested either had nothing to do with my problem or showed replacing a new, lighted sill for the old one after the old one had been removed. Pics of other models also show the old attachment parts already removed. In my 2014 RX at least, nothing comes off easily. Removing the sills means breaking the attachment parts leaving part on the old sill and part still in the car. One has to destroy the part in the car (carefully so as not to scratch and leave parts in the car frame) so a whole new set of attachment parts can be used to install the new sill (certainly not 45 seconds as claimed in one video!).

Once again, modern cars are designed to be assembled and not to be disassembled or repaired - Lexus is no different on this score!

kitlz

I'm not sure what you mean by breaking the attachments. There is a cracking sound when removing the sill which is not heard on the video. That's the white clips coming out of the black pieces in the door frame as shown in my picture. And there's no need to remove the black pieces since the white clips can be removed from the old sill. They slide out. You should've received new ones with the sill anyway.

BTW, I removed the lighted sills last weekend when I brought in the RXh for service. Removing them is easy. I find disconnecting the wire for the lighted sill to be the biggest PITA. Still I've done it at least a dozen times without any issues. Just make sure you press down to secure them in place.

skeptocrat

There is a white plastic piece that slips into the sill (4 of them) and that piece snaps into a black plastic piece that then snaps into the four holes in the body as shown in one of the photos on this thread.

The new sill purchased from Sewell comes with four new sets of plastic parts but they are already snapped to gather and cannot be separated without ruining one or the other.

When I remove the old sill some of the parts separate and others do not. The white pieces may break out of the old sill and leave the black piece behind or the white piece may separate from the black one. In any case the white pieces are not reusable (probably why they send new ones with the new sill) but there is no way to easily remove the old black piece from the body.

Sewell claims there is no answer but to destroy the old pieces getting them out and Lexus gives them no other instructions. My dealer wants as much to install the new sills as I saved buying them from Sewell.

So far Lexus DIY is faltering a bit for me.

kitlz

skeptocrat, I also had some of the black pieces come up with the white clips when I removed the sills for the first time. I just made sure I put them back in the corresponding spot on the new sill, using a combination of new and old pieces. The black pieces never came out again, only the white clips, which can easily be removed. Like I said, I've changed out the sills about a dozen times. Some parts are more difficult and problematic when removed for the first time. But it's much easier after that.

skeptocrat

I hope to put this all behind me now and can't imagine ever doing this again let alone "about a dozen times." Perhaps I am being naive.

gagorder

Have the same interior on the '13. Magic Eraser works wonders.

Best,
Tom