Citroen DS sill trim – removal

The sill trim on my DS was in poor condition – the rubbers were perished, the outer sill trim was cracking, and the trim on the inside sills had been replaced with Marine carpet.   Most of the information I could find on the Internet referred to a DS Pallas, and I wanted to keep my car as a DS Comfort.

The photo above illustrates the setup on the DS Comfort:   From the bottom, you have the stainless steel outer sill trim.   This is also present on a DS Pallas, not not ID variants (e.g. ID19, D Special, D Super etc).

then hidden by the doors, you have the silver fabric sill cover.   Above that there is a chrome strip that holds the inner part of the door seal, and then above that there is the Vinyl inner sill cover.  The Vinyl sill cover is the same as the ID model, and the DS Pallas has a chrome embellisher and carpet.

To remove, the stainless steel sill cover is just held on with a bunch of screws.   It is two pieces that are joined together, so you need to be careful to support both ends as you remove it.   As I understand it, the inner vinyl cover is glued to the sill, and fits into a slot on the chrome strip, so it can be peeled off.   The seats are only secured by four bolts, so it is easier to simply remove them.

This also gives you an opportunity to clean the sills before the new covers go on.   once the Vinyl inner cover is removed, then the screws that hold on the chrome strip are revealed.   These screws also hold on the inner door seal.   The outer trim that is hidden by the door is also glued on.  Mine had cracked and become very brittle, so it came off in a few pieces.

The previous owner had taken quite a bit of time to carefully cut the marine carpet to the shape of the sills.

Once all this trim is removed, the surfaces can be cleaned.   It is especially important to clean under where the stainless steel covers are, as my car that is rarely used in the rain still had mud hiding here, that would ultimately lead to rust.   Overall this job is not hard once you work out how to do it, and probably takes a couple of hours.   I was assisted by a friend from the CCCNSW which helped speed things up.