Thanks for this thread! It was a big help when I did my install today.

I have a small crack in my bumper cover (from a battle with a big, furry animal) and intend to replace it some day. With that in mind I wanted to find a way to alter the bumper cover and not the middle aero grill piece. I simply cut out all the material on the bumper cover in the middle opening (leaving the upper and lower "shelf" pieces) and inserted the new grill in the opening. I used a few blobs of silicone adhesive to hold it in place. It worked great - and I'm sure cutting out all that material improved air flow. I did paint the aluminum bumper black so it doesn't show through the new aero grill.

Thanks again for this thread!

 

Looks good schulzmc!
I have a question thats a little OT.
What kind of wheels are those? Whats the off-set?

Thanks.

 

They are Flik Bullets with an ET of 42.

 

Looks good Schulzmc! Glad the thread helped. There were lots of threads that described installation but i thought it would be helpful to condense it down.

Glad it helped!

 

Looks good. I thank NAM and it's wonderful members every time I do any installs on my MCS. Thanks for posting the pics.

 

The aero grills really add to the DS MINI. Really adds attitude and depth to the the nose imo.

 

I agree! The only reason I waited this long was my wife was against the idea - she likes the slats.

Then I get done today and she says, "Hey, that looks a lot better than I thought it would. I like it! Why didn't you do that sooner?"

She's waiting for the Clubman to come out. I hope it comes with the mesh grill. (grin)

 

My Mrs, has a cabrio... trying to talk her into the aero grille now...

 

In addition to all of the great advice in the above posts, I decided to add in my experience:

Upper grill: The only difference is that instead of using a flathead screwdriver I used a small pair of needle nose pliers to give upward pressure on two sides of the "garbage" nuts. As the nut backs off, the needle nose pliers wedge in a little further keeping even pressure on the nuts.

Lower: OK here is where, like most, I was a little more concerned but it was actually very simple just a little initimidating from the sound of the posts.

Disclaimer: This worked very well for me. I am not responsible if you break something on your car. I felt very comfortable that everything I was doing was not a risk of anything other than small cosmetic damage if I was wong.

I started by using a small wooden building shim (they are usually found in hardware stores in small packs) on the paint under the bottom of the chrome strip as a place to rest the flat head screwdriver. Given the width and the light pressure I was going to put on the chrome piece to test, I was confident I would not damage the paint. I was concerned that the tape on the screwdriver may not spread out the pressure enough. The chrome strip easily pulled back about 1/4 of a inch since I was between the clips that secure it to the bumper cover. I used another shim to go in a little further and hold it for a sec while I set down the screw driver. Now I could get the tip of my fingers (2) under the trim with my gloves on. I just pulled straight out wiggling and popped out the first clip. My start point was about 5 inches from the edge so I got the closer side out first then walked out the clips all the way down the bumper to the other edge. The only one to watch is the last one, as you could lever the strip against the last clip and mar the paint. I spent a little more time on that last clip to be extra careful. Then with the chrome strip out of the way the body colored strip that is mounted to the louver was next. looking at the outermost edge of it you can see a small gap between the louver and the colored slat (the thickness of the tape). Insert flathead screwdriver and pry it up. pull it out off the tape towards the center. I was going to remove the louver so was not worried about hurting the paint, but to be honest given the thicness of the tape it probably would not have hurt anything even if rather agressive there. total time so far probably about 5-10 min if extremely careful.

Louver removal: Now I took a min to look at how louver is held in. Its solid across the top of the louver and open on the bottom except for 2 small "bridged" areas to the lower portion. I grabbed my dremel starting at the outer edge and dremmeled both sides and the top edge using a 1/8 bit. resting the side of the dremel a bit on the louver itself to provide a slight angle to the bit while cuttign the top. This allowed for a flush straight removal of the top of the louver all the way along. The only portion of the louver remaining is the flat center section.

Lower grill triming: Blue painters masking tape is your friend here. I do not trust my self to transfer measurements from one rounded edge to another by "eye". Or tracing from one to another with that much movement between the pieces. So I wrapped the tape around the grill starting at the outermost clip on the top and continuing all the way around the bottom to the other outermost clip. This set me up for a way to use a ink pen to better transfer the measurments. From some of the posts above It seemed that just over 1/8" thick on the lower portion of the grill would be appropriate. I double checked that measurement by using some stiff heat shrink tubing with a outer diameter of just over 1/8". I used it to double check the "fat" 1/8 all the way around the lower portion of the grill opening on the bumper. Once I knew that measurement was valid, I then grabbed a regular ink pen and put on my macgyver hat. I taped a 1/8 drill bit (size of 1/8 not relevant, but easy to secure to the pen, and handy) I taped the drill bit so the shaft exteded 1.5-2" beyond the tip of the pen. Then by merely using the shaft of the drill bit as my guide I ran the pen around the edge of the grill. (to clarify the shaft of the drill bit is resting on the face of the grill, forcing the pen to make a mark just over 1/8 from the surface of the grill.) The advantage here is that my "protractor" made a consistent measurement all the way around. It matches the countour of the grill 100%. I figured it would remove any risk of cutting shallow/deep. I figured it would remove the need to remove the grill to trim again. After cutting, the piece looked the same as the other photos provided in the various diy's. I left all tabs intact and followed the other suggestions of elongating the outer holes on the bumper and making a few new ones. I used my dremel with a 1/8 bit to make the new slots and just made them a litlle wider in case I needed to adjust. In a effort to make sure it was mounted strongly I did not cut a full slot in the center of what used to be the piece between the 2 louvers. I cut a slot on center about 1/2 of that material. I then trimmed that middle top tab on the grill itself to only be ~1/4 to 3/8" (eyeball and dremel measurement). This kept that center piece very strong and made sure that the grill was rock solid in its mounting.

I opted not to paint the Aluminum section of the bumper after reading up on rock chips on the paint. I used some 3m black vinyl tape I had. I ran a strip down the length of the brace on the bottom, and then tied in each hole indiviually. I am interested to see how that holds up versus the painted approach.

Mounting: well now I had all the slots cut and the grill trimmed. I knew that If I tried to test fit it I would probably break a few tabs trying to remove it. So I double checked the fit again holding all tabs against the respective slots and made sure all the edges lined up. Then started on one side and pressed in the tabs. It popped in without much effort. One tab was a little snug relative to some of the others but I could have had it at a slight angle on my cut or not made sure I ran the 1/8 bit back and forth to remover burrs etc. I just had to give it a little tap with my hand. Popped on and I dare say its not coming off w/o serrious application of force.

Overall I am very pleased. I would highly reccomend the method of transfering the cutting lines to masking tape using a protractor vs tracing around the old grill. To much room for error in my opinion. I had no need to remove and trim using the "protractor" method. I hope someone finds this as usefull as I found a lot of the other posts in this thread.

Good Luck, Be Safe, and Have Fun

 

Pictures? i am curious what it looks like on something other than DS.

 

edit Here are a few pictures.

I actually didn't take any good pics after the install. I was just thrilled with the look and had not gotten out there yet with a good camera. I actually had a small digital with me at lunch today after running some family errands but didn't manage to find a moment to snap a couple of pics. I tried in the garage but the magic is lost on the small camera. I will see if I can snap a couple tomorrow morning. I guess thats my old lurker habits coming out more than anything else...

 

And just a few more.

 

bumpety bump bump

 

Any Hyper Blue owners have the Aero grill color matched?