2011 R56 S
Changing the silver grill surrounds to black. Took off the bottom piece and found this.... is it normal to have glue here? It's super-hard and can't be scraped off. Any ideas? Do I need an entirely new grill? Bottom piece won't snap in entirely now.

 

Stock, there shouldn’t be any glue there. Trim stays in place by the clips only.

 

Bought new (2013) JCW and chrome surround was 1 of first to go. No glue from factory but the clips are weak and crappy.
Flash forward to 2015 and I got a Countryman upper grille bar from ECS and flipped it upside down and mounted it with 3 plastic plugs & pop rivs to the lower portion of the upper grille. Perfect (almost) fit hor & vert so to ensure hi speed safety I used laser glue on the edges.
Car isn't a garage queen and is driven hard & put away wet. No problems in 3 plus years.
ISAMIN

 

Looks like the previous owner had problems and resorted to JB Weld. I would try carefully grinding off the old glue with a Dremel tool to see if the new surround will lock in properly. You can always use JB Weld to attach the new piece if necessary.

 

Yep, they did it to hold it on.