Just took mine off for a refresh...
Very easy...
1) remove the bolts under the facia.. ( I jacked up the car as the earlier facia's are lower to the ground than the latter cars, (mine is a 97))
2) remove the push-in buttons from the top and upper slot.. there are 9 total.
5 at the top (near the intake) and 4 more in the slot just below the top area
you took the 5 buttons from.. You should get new buttons ( at least I did ) for
replacement as they can get deformed during removal if you don't have the proper tool. (you can get the buttons at any auto supply store and they are cheap)
I used a large flat tip screw driver and a small piece of wood. I just put the
blade of the screw driver under the button and then slid the wood under the screw driver to use as a lever... the bottons just pop out this way.
3) Remove the wheel well bolts that hold the facia there.
4) Slowly peal back the facia from the wheel well and you can reach your hand
in there to un-hook the turn signal lamp. Just grab the plastic where the wires
enter the lamp and turn the plastic.. its slotted and after turning it you can
pull it out.
The fog lamp can be un-hooked by seperating the connector from the housing.
Just pull enough wire out to see the connector.
5) Now just pull the facia off of the car...
6) If your going to have the facia painted you'll want to remove the turn signal
and fog lamp housings... just remove the bolts and they come out easy...
7) The front emblem should also be removed, take a hair dryer and blow on the
emblem until its a little warm... now just take some fising line and slide the
line between the emblem and the facia and use it as a saw to cut the double sided tape that holds on the emblem....
8) For those with fog lamp protection lenses. Locate the protection lens and
find the tab that faces the center of the facia. With both index fingers, one
on each side of the tab, pull down (don't pull outwards )with your fingers pretty forceful and the tab will come out of the slot in the facia, after you notice that the tab is clear of the slot just pull back about an inch and you can now just pull the lens cover out of the facia.. It does take some strength to push the tab out. They go back in the same as they came out,
don't use a screw driver in an attempt to get these off of the facia as it most
likely with result in the tab breaking off...
Thats it... like mentioned, the first time will take you around 30 minutes,
after that you should be able to do it in around 10 minutes...
Side note: folks who do not need to refresh the facia... but you may have this situation...
If you get down and look straight into the facia and you notice that the runner
of the facia looks bowed or warped there is a very very easy fix for this...
What has happen'd ??? The runner on the back side of the facia has a structure foam piece inserted into the runner channel, this foam is put in the
channel and is only held in place with double sided tape, but the tape does
not run the entire length of the channel and is only held in place at a few spots. Where the tape does not exist is where the facia runner will bow or warp
over time. When the facia if off of the car is the perfect time to fix this.
Quite easy, with the facia off the car now just insert a few double sided
tape strips where the bowing has happen'd. Just make sure that the thickness
of the tape is correct to straigten the runner, too thin and you will have the
runner bowing in the the opposite direction, easy to make the strip the correct thickness, just double up the tape or tripple it until you get the right thickness...
The original tape is wrapped around the foam piece.. just leave those tape pieces and fill in the gap length wise and squeeze the facia down to meet the double sided tape, you'll want to fill the gap's on both top and bottom sides of the foam to fix it correctly.
This will fix the bowing, makes the overall area stronger and shouldn't bow again if you take your time and do it correct...
hope this helps