Painting my grille body color

[Daez Nutz]

I should be getting a replacement avantgarde grille in the mail soon (fender bender), and I'm considering have it painted body color (black pearl). Does anyone know the proper method for this? From what I can gather, it is easy to paint a grille, but because the paint is being applied to chrome and plastic, it is extremely susceptible to rock chips and cracking. Some solutions I've heard are dechroming, special primer for chrome, and flex agents in the paint. I know there are other members who have painted grilles. How did you go about it? Where did you have it done? I asked at Y&S a few weeks ago, and although they were willing to do it, they warned that it would chip and crack (at least they were honest). Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Dr. ///AMG]

You wanna ask Ashman about this. He did his grill by himself. First try resulted in chips. 2nd try, with mad coats of primers from what he told me, resulted in good stuff.

My sister had her W202 grill painted black at the bodyshop free of charge (she resprayed her car).

[AMGDood]

i need to get my grill repainted too.
right now i have black vinyl covering the grill and it held up pretty well from august to about march when the 1st rock chip came. Now it looks like pure garbage.

Any information on this subject would be great.

[joe55]

If you do not get any enjoyment from this stuff (like I do:D ), I'd have a body shop do it.

Have them do a sand and prime, 2 base coat and 3 clear to match your car. The grill will look wicked and hold up a lot longer than a couple cans of acrylic laquer or enamel. They shouldn't charge you more than ~75 bucks.;) ;)

[Ozzie Bob]

Silly suggestions, but have ya'll ever considered annodizing or powder coating your grilles :confused:

[mrjones]

I've been playing with the idea as well - but I'd leave the chrome as is and just paint the black plastic Nautical Blue or the trim/off colour. :)

[Brabus]

Hmmm, a lotta people asking about this lately...

Black
http://12.234.61.76/albums/AMG-Turbo/AMG_Turbo_Lighting_8.sized.jpg

or Silver??

http://12.234.61.76/albums/C36/Christmas_C36_pics_3.jpg

[AMGDood]

Originally posted by Ozzie Bob
Silly suggestions, but have ya'll ever considered annodizing or powder coating your grilles :confused:

i dont know what annodizing is but i thought about powdercoating but because the grill isnt full metal like rims are it would just melt in the oven.