Well. I am not a mechanic so I will try and make sense of this. I have the automatic. On the center console, there is a gear indicator like P, N, D and what not. There is no protection of the the little square that displays the letters. It is really dirty in there. How can I clean that? Can I take off the plate that covers that to get to it? Dust and other junk get in there, and the square is too small to clean effectively. Any ideas? Thanks.

-6 guy

 

it should come off.... there may be a couple of screws.... there may be a small square on top that will pop off... there will be 1-2 bolts that you will unscrew, and the console should pop off... altho, you may need to take some other parts off too... i drive a mazda3, and i have a little sqaure that pops off, and i believe my old civic was like that too

 

You can pull out that panel, but it takes a little to get to it (it's snapped into the ashtray panel from the bottom.)

Pull out the cupholder panel (pull straight up at the 4 corners of the cupholder, don't pull on the lid if you have one.)
Remove your shift **** (unscrew counterclockwise)
With your shifter in the "N" or "R" position, slide the ashtray panel (with PRNDL attached) up....there will be a couple of wire harnesses going into the ashtray panel for the lightbulbs that illuminate the PRNDL, give the bulb socket a small twist and they should pop out.

Once you have the ashtray panel out of the console, you can flip over the ashtray panel and you will see the 4 "clips" that hold the PRNDL bezel into the ashtray panel, push the PRNDL bezel down to pop it out of the ashtray panel....If you want to get it real clean, you need to take out a couple more screws holding the actual PRNDL bezel upper/lower together.

I'd use a toothbrush and clean the bezel without completely disassembling it.