[Brian]

If you're ridiculously careful, you may be able to not-break SOME of the clip holders. I was able to do this. But the more garnish panels I removed, the more clip holders I broke. i.e.: It did not get easier with practice. I removed 2 from a parts car of the color I was looking for, then I removed the original 2 from my car. And it wasn't all on the same day! (At least I don't think so.) I really didn't have to be as careful with the ones I removed from my car, since I was replacing them, but I did plan to be. It was still aggonizing! The clip holders are molded from the same plastic piece as the exterior of the garnish. They are U-shaped, but the open end of the U's point in different directions, so it's not as simple as just sliding the whole strip in one direction to free it from the clips. I think I used a screw driver and/or a similarly shaped prying tool that ends in 2 forked prongs. If you save the broken pieces of the clip holders, you may be able to glue some of them back on. That's something I did too.

Rather than pay the extra money for new Subaru clips, I made life more difficult by buying somewhat similar generic clips, and modifying them. They had 2 parallel insert disks on each stem, making the clips too long. I cut the stem between the 2 disks, shortening the stem and doing away with the extra disk. The results are not as good as using the Subaru clips, but they are "good enough". Some of the crucial holders wouldn't accomodate these modified clips. Luckily I didn't break all of the original clips, and I reused them wherever I could. Not all of the clips/holders are crucial. You can get away with using less clips than the number that they originally came with, as some people have done.