Thanks for all the help! The new part is in and looking factory
I knew nothing about panel removal or replacement, so I felt a little unsure going into this.
Here are the things that are obvious to anyone after their first garnish swap:
REMOVAL
-DO NOTpull the seat just for this. It was no impediment at all.
-The thin tool under the sill method is easy and won't break the clips if done as described above (one clip at a time). My sill had 4 clips. If a clip stays with the car pry it out and slip it back into the sill. The shape of the part makes sliding it into the sill while still in the metal a chore.
-Removing the soft seal next will leave the clips behind. You can skip it with little consequence but you might want to mark the location of the clips along the metal edge.
-Here is where I pulled the outer edge of the garnish up enough to get the clip off of the metal edge and, essentially, free the part.
-It's easier to remove the garnish by pulling down and out rather than just out. Once the flange under the seat at the bottom is clear, just lift the bottom a few inches and slide down and forward at the same time. This goes without resistance once the clips aren't holding the garnish to the metal. PARTS
-I bought a garnish on ebay that was supposed to fit and may have but, while the color was right, the shape was a bit different. I'll attach a pic to show that. Also, my part was black plastic with ivory leather attached and the purchased part was all tan and all one seamless non-leather material.
-On ebay there are sellers listing their item under every similar part number rather than every exactly alike part number.
-On ebay, tan and ivory seem often to be interchanged. The two-letter color codes may be right but it's hard to tell because of ambiguity. Dealer parts guy said that they had a change and the color codes are inconsistently reused across production years and part number supersessions. I didn't realize this but both parts color-matched well anyway.
-The installed item seemed as new and spot on with my semi-aniline for $39. INSTALLATION
-Put the top end in a couple inches low, push it in and up. Getting the garnish all the way up to the top has to be done correctly before any clip snaps in. If it is not quite flush, you may want to back out and start again as the tabs have to get behind their ridge.
-There's a little black grease around the clips so keep your hands clean to keep it off your new leather.
-I found it is easier to press the garnish into the clip last. Put the clip on the soft seal and firmly attach the clip to the metal edge. Insert the garnish tabs firmly and listen to confirm the three snaps as they pop into place.
-The flange at the bottom end needs to be tucked under the seat before the sill is replaced. It's easy, it might happen by accident.
-If all the clips are in the sill, then replacing the sill is merely lining up the clips with the holes and pressing down.
Once again I'm astounded at the knowledge, and the helpfulness, of the many good people on this forum! Whenever I see anything helpful on Lexus I just copy the page with Pdfcrowd and file it away for later like I did for this page.
I have the same issue with the interior trim pieces but it's the ones behind the front seats. Both pieces were already a bit chewed up when I bought the car. My wife found the car for me to buy and even test drove it first, and it was the first thing she pointed out, since it really bothered her for some reason. But since I felt the rest of the car was about as perfect as a 6 year old car was likely to be, I just went ahead and bought the car with these parts as is.
Now it's got me thinking again that maybe I could replace these two pieces, but a more important question is should I. But since these two parts being imperfect doesn't bother me a bit and now I know they got that way from unbuckling the seat belts, the same thing will happen to the new ones anyway; so I guess that idea's going nowhere lol
