Painting Hood & Kidney Grill Titanium Silver?
 

Hi there,

My new X has the stock black kidney grills and hood grills. I've looked at a number of 4.4's and I really like the titanium silver grills that they come with. Instead of buying a new pair of grills I thought that i'd try painting them. Has anybody had experience with this and could advise on the colour they used? Some photos would be awesome! I know there are many different shades of silver and I don't want it to look ricey.

Alternatively, does anybody want a pair of black grills in exchange for some silver grills & hood vents? My car is an 06 X5 facelift.

I painted the grills on my '04 3.0. They looked good for about a year until the paint chipped. Eventually, I just bit the bullet and bought the silver inserts. Removing the brittle plastic of the black ones may cause them to break anyway.

The OE silver grills still look great after 7 years.

I painted both my Kidney and Bumper grilles using Rustoleum Metallic Silver after I applied Adhesion Promoter. And they've held up really well a year onward.

You can purchase BMW Titan Silver 354 in aerosol spray cans. I happened to have the Rustoleum on hand and seemed to be a very close match. As PropellerHead mentioned, the inserts of the Kidney grilles can be brittle but if you're very careful you can remove and reinsert without breaking off every tab.

Forget the paint, waste of your time. Just buy the molded in color Titanium ones.

Thanks for the advice guys! I'll definitely have a think about both. However, I wouldn't mind having a crack at painting them before I go out and spend $250 on kidney and hood grills.

I've got a set of OE titanium grilles (just kidneys, no hood vents) I could sell you. Let me have a good look at them before giving you an asking price. I haven't looked at them since removed so I want to make sure they aren't beat up or anything. If you're interested anyway. Shoot me a PM.