These have to come off to remove the rear deck. They are held in by two medium sized philips head screws. Holy Mary Mother of God, are these things tight !!! They must have used high strength locktite at the factory. Realistically this should have been a 8 mm bolt - I don't know what they were thinking. Anyhow I used my largest philips head screwdriver and stripped it out. Next I tried a nut driver with a hammer and still did not budge. I'm going to try to find a larger philips head at Sears and if that strips it completely then I'll have to slot the head with my Dremel and use my two foot long flat blade screw driver. If/When I get these bastards off, I'll be replacing them with the hex head bolts that should have been there in the first place. Hope you guys have better luck.

 

Actually I used an Impact driver not a nut driver...still trying to get the screw off...

 

take a bad flathead, and use it as a chisel on the outside of the screw, and hammer it so it turns the screw.

it may take a few wacks, or use the dremel to slot it as you said. both ideas work!

 

Hehehehe,

I thought my car was the only one with that darn stubburn bolt. I tried everything to get that thing out. Finally I gave up and broke off the plastic around the bolt and used a vise grip to pry off the bolt. Talk about a pain, ended up having to buy a new handle. The only good that came out of it was the new handle had a coat hanger designed into it.

LexusBiz

 

I finally got the pax side off. I think I'll have arthritis at least 5 years earlier due to this ! I went to Ace Hardware and picked up a set of allen keyed bolts w/some washers - should work well. The driver's side screws are stilled mangled, but I'll probably leave them as I don't need to take them off now. The new speakers sound great - almost worth the trouble. Bottom line - use a large philips head that fits perfectly and then sit in the rear seat to get good access. Next, put on the big leather weightlifting belt. Then push up on the screw and turn as hard as you can. Or drive to CA and get their governor to help you with it - he's not busy anyhoo.

 

assistant handles? i thought they were called the oh sh*t handles

 

"Interior Assist Handles" sounded cool right...
or maybe "Supplemental Ingress/Egress Aid" or "Self-Defecation Prevention" .

 

I am glad someone finally agrees! When I first removed my deck a few years back, I noticed some posts saying you could bend the deck enough to wedge it out, and I said it can't be done! I guess some decks are stiffer than others.

 

I tried to bend mine first, but stopped. After removing all the neccessary panels and finally pulling out the deck I discovered a few small tear/breaks in the fiberboard. Had I continued to bend it - it would have broken for sure. PITA.