I searched the forums and was not able to find an answer for the question: How do I remove my a-pillars? So, being a repair man for the local Volkswagen Chattanooga plant making the award winning Passat, I decided to tackle this job on my own.
I joined golfmk7.com specifically to thank you for this post!
It definitely explained why the A pillar trim wouldn't come off all the way, and thankfully I found this post before yanking the whole thing out!
I read another article which suggested I placed the dash cam cable behind the airbag, but I'm sure it would cross in front unless either I took the trim off completely, or snake the cable along the dash and run it up near the windscreen.
See my link. I ran my dashcam wire down the passenger side, but the drivers side would be no different. I did NOT remove any trim.
This gave me some confidence I didn't have to remove the whole shebang, but it was a little easier with the A pillar trim mostly out.
Still the hardest part was to squeeze through that 1/4 panel (I mean, what could you use that for, and a pain to clean!), but thankfully got there with some pry tools and a bit of muscle. A relatively thick cable also hindered and helped at the same time.
But by far the hardest was to loop around the bottom corner where the A pillar trim met the windscreen...
I was much happier once that was done and the cable no longer crossed in front of the airbag.
Recently used this excellent guide when I was hunting for a rattle, went ahead and bought new clips rather than trying bend the old ones back into shape.
Thanks so much for the info. When I was putting the trim back in, I'm sure it should've clipped over a thin edge so the trim near along the windscreen would go over the metal. I took me many, many tries to lift the trim against the windscreen and banging on the trim to clip it in.
The last attempt I was happiest the edge of the trim finally went mostly over the metal lip. It was also when I heard a piece of metal drop...
Took the car out for a drive, nothing rattled, so I guess that loose clip will just have to sit there till the car finally gets scrapped! Still, you never know if I'd end up needing replacement clips!