How to clean side Vents..
 

Ok so my side vents are going black... I was thinking about taking them out and respraying them silver.. has anyone done this before?

cheers

I've never done it before but I would assume you do something along these lines:

Sand the old paint off with coarse sand paper
Smooth the vents out with finer sand paper
spray paint on the vents
sand down with fine paper
spray light coat
sand down with even finer sand paper
spray on clear coat
sand with fine paper
spray on another clear coat

thats just what i would do

Yeh sweet as.. my next challenge is how to get them out??

They are pretty easy to remove.

As quoted from the Bentley:

"Remove the screw." If you squat down and look up into the intake vent you'll see one screw on the upper underside.

"Using a plastic pry tool or narrow tipped screw driver, pry back the clips and pull vent from quarter panel."

You should then be able to just push the grill back and out of the brackets.

While you're in there... desnorkle. :cheers:

I went silver (arctic) and like it!

had mine in silver while i had silver wheels, now they are black to go with black wheels and i also put a black mesh grille inside to prevent as much as i could some cigarette butts or other stuff getting in there

go for it

did the same to mine, the silver just breaks it up nicely...

Are there any pictures available of these clips? I have a 2003 and have a bees nest in my intake side that I need to remove. I tried yesterday and after removing the screw I could not find (with my fingers) any clips to remove but the vent would not come off and I did not want to break it.

I'd like to desnorkle at the same time but can't figure out where the "clips" are located that I need to pry.

I hate to continue the minor thread-jack, but the '03 is different than the older models. The side vent is one piece.

For the '03 model:

1. Remove screw
2. From the lower front corner of the exterior of the vent, press up and toward rear of car while pulling out. This will unseat the one clip built into this part.
3. *Carefully* remove the black plastic part now in front of you. This flimsy molded part costs $70 to replace! Pull toward you on the interference fit retention clips in this order...Bottom, side, and then top. The top has to be slightly turned after removing the others to get it out.
4. Once you have that out, remove the one screw you see immediately in front of you.
5. Remove the flexible plastic screen retained by the screw you just removed.
6. Remove that damn snorkel. Trick is to pry it toward the rear of the car to unseat the snaps and then pull outward. You'll feel like you are pulling hard enough to break something.
7. Reverse everything in steps 5-1 and you're done.

This is all from memory, so anyone with and '03 or '04 please chime in if I missed anything.

Wow. That's really dirty, did you spent a week driving in Manhattan or something? :p

I spend my time to clean the vents whenever I clean the car.

Thanks, I was able to get it off following your advice.