Forrester 2006 door panel question

From several different Subies, the door panel is held in with plastic studs. The studs have ribs or expand out to hold them into the hole in the door. A flat head on the stud slides into a slot in the panel. To remove, you just pull out on the door. However, my experience is that the slots in the fiberboard material used for the panel may tear (which means the stud has nothing to grab and the panel won't be affixed to the door at that point). So I use a flat pry bar as my "tool": slide underneath, pry the panel away from the door. For all the other cover plates and control panel, I use a flat-blade screwdriver (as wide as will work to reduce the change of denting the plastic). Once you pry the panel away from the door, lift it up to slide the window guard out of the door's window slot at the top. There will be wiring going to the window/lock control panel on the panel.

Before prying the panel away from the door, there are likely a couple of screws holding the panel to the door. One is usually inside the handle on the panel at the top front of the handle (there may be a foam stopper inside you have to pull out) and another under a plastic cover that you pop off. These screws are needed to provide the support for you pulling or pressing down on the door handle. Also pry out the door opener handle's bezel. This can be tricky as you cannot see where are the tangs on the bezel that engage the housing around the door opener handle. I've broken those tangs on the bezel and had to buy a new one. The old the car, the more brittle the plastic.

Unlike that video, you may not need to remove the window/lock panel before removing the door panel. On mine, the control panel will move out (with wires connected to it) with the door panel. For your model year, YouTube has videos: like: On my Legacies, the mirror cover plate did not have to be remove because it was thin. In the Forester videos, that cover plate is thick so you need to remove it to move up the panel to slide it out of the window slot in the door.

Thank you!

I was following this and looking to see if it were in online shop manuals that Russian websites offer. I had downloaded all of them for my old '03 Forester.

What you got is today's best answer - try youtube.

I got a new watch for fathers day and with dimming vision, a 1/4 inch thick tiny manual I could not set the time. Called son to maybe take it back and he suggested youtube and it turned out to be very simple.