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So, at about 10:30pm last night, my wife got a call from an old friend with whom she hadn't spoken in something like 10 years (it was planned - their mother's are best friends...wasn't hard to track each other down). I was about to reinstall my newly sanded "brushed chrome" sideview mirror covers (a la Chris) and figured I probably had a few minutes extra to kill. That damn center console cupholder I got when I bought the car has literally been sitting around for a year waiting for me to install it. Yeah, talk about low priority.
The covers, of course, pop on and off with minimal effort. After that, however, I'm not sure what I was thinking. The cupholder install is nothing like "just flip the tabs and remove" as in the '04 models. The '05 requires you to remove the radio, the stainless steel trim, etc. And, not really giving it proper thought beforehand (if I had, I'd have realized that I was a little tired from 2 solid days of chasing my 14 month old daugher since 6am) I decided it was a good time to pop the cupholder into place.
So, I pulled out some of the tools, pried off the trim piece around the shifter to expose the 2 torque screws which allow you drop the center panel, dropped 1 (in the shadowy darkness that was my garage) and then, in my feable, overtired attempt to retrieve the screw, dropped the little torque wrench right after it.
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The Polish blood was beginning to flow strong.
Had it not been for my fumbling fingers and the fact that I couldn't find the 4th torque screw in the back of the radio that held radio in place (despite the fact that it was right smack dab in front of me...again, in the relative, overtired, misty-eyed darkness.
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) it would have been a relatively easy install.
It wasn't.
Damn thing went back together in less than 5 minutes. It probably took me a good hour to figure out what the hell I was doing (or wasn't doing) to get it out. At least now I have an oversized cupholder which my wife doesn't like ("now where do I put my cellphone") and won't properly hold a cup of coffee (as I learned this morning)! Time well spent...after a year of waiting. It's Monday now, isn't it?
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-Eric
The covers, of course, pop on and off with minimal effort. After that, however, I'm not sure what I was thinking. The cupholder install is nothing like "just flip the tabs and remove" as in the '04 models. The '05 requires you to remove the radio, the stainless steel trim, etc. And, not really giving it proper thought beforehand (if I had, I'd have realized that I was a little tired from 2 solid days of chasing my 14 month old daugher since 6am) I decided it was a good time to pop the cupholder into place.
So, I pulled out some of the tools, pried off the trim piece around the shifter to expose the 2 torque screws which allow you drop the center panel, dropped 1 (in the shadowy darkness that was my garage) and then, in my feable, overtired attempt to retrieve the screw, dropped the little torque wrench right after it.
The Polish blood was beginning to flow strong.
Had it not been for my fumbling fingers and the fact that I couldn't find the 4th torque screw in the back of the radio that held radio in place (despite the fact that it was right smack dab in front of me...again, in the relative, overtired, misty-eyed darkness.
It wasn't.
Damn thing went back together in less than 5 minutes. It probably took me a good hour to figure out what the hell I was doing (or wasn't doing) to get it out. At least now I have an oversized cupholder which my wife doesn't like ("now where do I put my cellphone") and won't properly hold a cup of coffee (as I learned this morning)! Time well spent...after a year of waiting. It's Monday now, isn't it?
-Eric
