Just got my headlight rings, taillight rings and grill surrounds painted body color, courtesy of our very own orangecrush!

 

BTW, all the writeup threads I've seen for removing the headlight rings suggest some variation of using a screwdriver or other tool to pry the clips off. When I tried that, I broke one of them, and couldn't ever get another one off before feeling I was going to break more too.

This prompted me to go to my dealership and see how they take them off. The answer is pretty simple really, and there's almost no chance of breaking the clip. You use your thumb to push the outside part of the clip straight up and it pops out (see pic). Just do each one and make sure none of them fall off the headlight ring, as the most likely place they'll fall is into the engine compartment. To make sure that didn't happen, I took each clip off the ring as I disengaged it. They slide back toward the outside edge of the ring.

 

Looks great! Are you going to black out all the other chrome pieces?

 

Definitely the beltline, side scuttles and gas cap. I like a little bit of contrast provided in the door handles...plus they're harder to remove and pretty expensve to black out.

 

Wow that looks great!

 

Looks great! I also just used my thumb when taking my rings out for blackout, was pretty easy.

 

yeah just recently did the whole dechrome on my wifes mini