Hey NAM, I see a lot of grilles like this floating around the internet. They are styled like the S R56 grille, but fitted to a R53. I would rather not get an aero grille, since I don't want to modify my bumper at all.
The attached one is on OutMotoring for $108.95, and there are identical ones on eBay for around $80. They supposedly require no modding and just bolt on.

Has anyone on here equipped their R53 with one of these? I'd like to see some pictures before I go for the plunge. In the photos on OutMotoring, I can't really judge right because I have a BRG MINI and I want to say that the piano gloss black would look better on a darker car like mine. Just want some feedback.

Thanks in advance for anything!

Sara

 

If you are unsure of the color, keep in mind that paint is cheap.

 

Hey, thanks for the response. I want to keep the grille black. I was saying I can't really imagine the grille on a BRG since the photo uploaded is on such a contrasting colored MINI. I was mainly wondering if people have had experience with these grilles, and if they had photos to show.

 

I'm interested to know too, I was looking at that one for my car. It may end up getting repainted to a flat black though.

 

Finally came in the mail. Some Plasti-dip and driving lights later...

BEFORE


AFTER



Mucho happy with results.

 

Excellent, mine arrives from outmotoring today. How many coats of Plastic Dip did you require? Just 1 can?

 

Not bad at all. The Plasti-Dip looks like it matches the color of the very bottom mesh pretty closely. That's about what I'm planning to go for on my car too. How was the install overall?

 

What ebay vendor did you use? I may have to get one of those!!

 

Actually, it matches it perfectly. I think the pictures don't do any justice since I was just snapping them out of excitement We started doing this later in the evening and had no idea that Plasti-Dip required 30+ minutes between coats and a FOUR HOUR dry time after everything so needless to say we were up all night. On the 3rd out of the 4th coat, we were at the very end of the can. Pretty sure the last bit of the PD in the can was bad/not mixed thoroughly and left my grilles with gray splotches. So a new can, a little tantrum via myself , and two more coats later it looked perfect and stronger. Install wasn't too bad. The main thing was taking the old grille off. On the top one, 90% of the little things that hold the nuts/washers on them broke off, so if I wanted to use the three-slat grille again we'd have to figure out some other way of putting it on. Bottom grille, you have to pull the bumper off a bit and get it off, which wasn't too bad. Installing the new one was simple.

I got it from mossmini for maybe $25 more than the eBay vendor I was close to purchasing from. Scared me a little when the one MINI owner feedback said "made it work" (vendor made grilles for all makes) I didn't want to make it work. Felt a little better spending a bit more on Moss.