rodybmw

I am not a chrome fan and have always painted the chrome part of the grill black on my other BMW's. As much as I hate chrome I really love brushed or sandblasted metals. I will be getting the brushed aluminum trim to replace the wood in my 545i soon. So i thought that I would try to brush the chrome surrounds and the slats of the grills and see how it looks. If I did not like it I would then paint it black.

When I had removed the grills from the old bumper in order to put them in the new M kit bumper I thought that it was the perfect time to try it out. Brushing the slats literally took less than ten minutes for both grills. The coating is very soft and thin so if you are too aggressive you will take too much off and see the black plastic underneith. The grill surrounds or frames were another story. I was using a combination of sandpaper and abrasive pads to brush the surrounds with hand and it took two or three hours to get it so that you could see the brushed lines without seeing any significant shine from underneith. I was impressed at the thickness and hardness of the chromeplating on the grill surrounds, especially since the chrome is plated over plastic and not metal.

Here are the pictures of the brushed grills (the little spots are rain droplets.....they are not stains):

freed0m

WOW! Very nice... I like

andy545

Hmmmm.....not bad at all.

subterFUSE

I'm planning on getting my Kidneys painted to match the body color. But that brushed look is sweet.

But I'm going painted. Plus, our cars need to be a little more unique. haha.

rodybmw

I'll be curious to see how it looks. On some of my older BMW's where the surrounding part of the grill was just black plastic (like the E30) I did paint the chrome grill body color and it looked nice. However, my 1995 E36 M3 and all the BMW's I have owned since then already had the body color around the chrome grills, so I decided to paint the grills matte black. That way the grills would not blend with the surrounding area and they could still be seen. It just looked more sporty because they were matte black.

This time I decided to try the brushed look and if I did not like it I would then paint it matte black. So far I like it.

subterFUSE

Well, there is a post in this area of a Hamann E60 with painted kidneys, and it looks sweet. I have found that cars with painted grill surrounds look better to me than chrome.

Examples:


I had an old Honda Civic coupe years ago. On the Civic, the coupe had painted grill surround while the 4 door had chrome.

I also had an Acura Legend coupe after the Civic. On the Legend, the 4 door had chrome grill surround, while the Coupe had painted. The Coupe looked SO much better because of the grill. Also, on the Coupe, the grill was smaller than the 4 door, which made it look more sporty.

So, I plan to do painted kidney surrounds on my E60 whenever I get around to it.

Fin535dA

Very nice! IMO looks better than the original chrome look..

ipp

VERY nice! I'm not a big chome fan either.. Which I'd dared to do the same. I would 100% break something. :'(

MEX

it looks great!!! i dont like them painted, but this looks a lot more up to date without loosing class. congrats!

NY525

Rody I'll have to say, thats the same idea i had for mine, now after seeing yours & how great it looks I just have to get off my butt & do it lol..