I'm kind of not diggin' the color-matched front grill on my R53. I want to go black but I'm not sure if the mesh will look so much different from a can of paint as to justify the cost. Therefor I defer to you oh moders and painters. Let me see some photos and hear some testimonials. Which will win? Paint or mesh?

Please vote here too: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2PNXNW2

 

lol, I am going to make it even more of a quandary for ya.

I went aero grille -

then painted all of it body color All three pieces...

 

Lol, definitely will keep it black

 

Use plasti dip to paint the grill. Completely reversible.

 

any one have step by step for a newbie on pasti dip

 

In my opinion, the mesh or honey-comb style grills look WAY WAY better than the bar (stock) ones.
Way better.

 

buy can.
mask of areas you dont want painted.
spray.
if you dont like it => peel off...

 

 

I like them both, but whichever one you want dictates whether you are going for sport or retro. I personally think my blacked out slatted grill looks plain sick on my car and I can't see myself with the honeycomb grill. But I'm also going for a modern retro look.

 

Does plasti-dip stand up well to rocks and other road stuff?

 

I would assume its pretty thick since you can peel it off if you dont like it.

You could also do the M7 grilles upper middle and lower. I have the upper and middle grilles getting the lower soon.

 

Plastidip is pretty tough, not because it is hard, but because it is rubbery. On grill slats, I'd assume if the rock were big enough to cause major damage to the plastidip, it'd break the slat anyway.

 

Actually, I can agree with that on yours.
Because it is all glossy black. All murdered out.

 

I Plastidip'd my slats a few months ago. There have been a few spots where a rock has broken through, but I just spray some Plastidip on a piece of paper and touch it up with a paintbrush. Works flawlessly.

 

Where do you get plastidip? Is it just spray paint?

 

The kind we use is a spray "paint", except for in every way. It like the rubber coating on tool handles in spray form. Black can be bought at Home Depot for about $6 a can. Other colors will have to be bought online, for about 3x as much.

 

alright soooo... picked up my can of plasti dip today from home depot. if i read correctly you just leave the grille installed on the car? then mask around it. and just spray it down and let it dry for a while? my only concern is if you just mask around where the area, won't it still spray pretty much everywhere? do you need to stand back while doing this, or can you be closer so you know you're not gonna paint the front of the car! sorry, just a little confused, and i wanna know for sure what i'm doing before i start so the whole process sprays nice and easily and comes out great! thanks for the help guys!

 

The Plasti-Dip didn't seem to overspray much (I did my scoop...took it off first though).

The top grill is pretty easy to get off...I'd remove it before I sprayed. The bottom is anything but easy to get off (the slat is actually glued on the bumber), so you'd need to do that one in place.

 

okay, so how do i get the top grill off?

 

It's just a bunch of really stubborn little self tapping nuts. I followed the Aero Grill install (http://www.motoringfile.com/howto/MI...l.pdf)...which basically just says to take the nuts off (the directions are really for getting the lower grill off and the Aero grill modified to fit).

Now that I think about it, try it to get one of the nuts off first....I think I broke about 1/3 of them (but was replacing the grill so didn't care). If yours are as stubborn as mine were, you may be better off leaving it in place and masking it!

 

hahaha. i'll try that then. just worried about getting some of the spray on my paint!

 

Don't worry! It's not like real spray paint. I'd definitely mask it well, but once it dries a bit, you can just peel it off. When I did my scoop, I messed it up the first time (after 3 coats too! )...it peeled off easily and cleanly.

 

oh no! is it hard to use?! any tips? :[

 

I was worried that it would be hard to use, but it's really easy. It looked a little uneven when wet, but evened out and was nice and smooth when dry.

I had to re-do it because I dropped it when I picked it up to spray the inside of the scoop

It gives a nice (IMO) flat black finish...here's a shot of the scoop (please ignore the nasty scratches in my stripes):


Either way, if you mess it up or don't like it...it just peels right off!