Lower grill replacement

[RenoHuskerDu]

Hello,

My lower left grill has suffered ignominy and defeat by lapidation.  See pic below.  I have not bothered to price a BMW replacement part. I did find this one on eBay http://goo.gl/QEJu7O but it's just black plastic.  Once painted, the paint would inevitably chip with French stones.
Does anyone know of a UK source for better quality, hopefully expanded metal?

[X5-D-Sport]

I have the same problem to fix on my car also....

i spotted some Aluminium black anodised sports mesh that the street racers use..
its not cheap, but wil certainly out live this brittle plastic OEM mesh crud that we have fitred to our beloved X5s..

as the bumper has to come off to fit it, it should be a straight forward job fitting the Ally mesh to replace the original plastic rubbish.

Ive seen back anodised sheets of ally mesh on Flea-bay that would look excellent...
a job for warmer moths me thinks  :-[

[mikem]

It's a bit of a fiddle but they can be slid in and out of the clips with the bumper in place. I got a replacement new silver one on eBay for about £35 from a dealer.

Anodised metal isn't a great solution as stones just knock chunks out and it discolours there - I've used it on a track car.

[ScottBarton]

Check these guys out. I replaced the very same parts on my X5.
Genuine BMW parts and a snip of the price.

http://xdrivers.co.uk/forum/index.php/t ... #msg115304

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-X5-E53-20 ... 2c92e1d307

[ScottBarton]

For the matching set.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-X5-E53-20 ... 2c8ef05d36


I also replaced my front Kidneys with an all black version. Has completely changed the front appearance of the car.

[X5-D-Sport]

Hi Scott,
The Black Kidneys sound good...

Any chance od swapping mail addresses & ping me a picture please - I may do the same to my beast..

[RenoHuskerDu]

I'd love to see pics of your beast too. Just the lowers are black now?

As for kidneys, there's a recent fad in Germany of black with three of the uprights in BMW colors. Looks quite good, and they are not very dear at all. Even Amazon.de has them.

[ScottBarton]

All three grille sections are now black. The long bottom one, and the upper halves, along with the kidneys.
Will get a picture up.

[briankerrys47]

[quote="RenoHuskerDu"]
Hello,

My lower left grill has suffered ignominy and defeat by lapidation.  See pic below.  I have not bothered to price a BMW replacement part. I did find this one on eBay http://goo.gl/QEJu7O but it's just black plastic.  Once painted, the paint would inevitably chip with French stones.
Does anyone know of a UK source for better quality, hopefully expanded metal?

[/quote]The Tech name I believe is 'weld mesh' any sheet metal fabricators stock some ????

[TimX5]

[quote="briankerrys47"]
[quote="RenoHuskerDu"]
Hello,

My lower left grill has suffered ignominy and defeat by lapidation.  See pic below.  I have not bothered to price a BMW replacement part. I did find this one on eBay http://goo.gl/QEJu7O but it's just black plastic.  Once painted, the paint would inevitably chip with French stones.
Does anyone know of a UK source for better quality, hopefully expanded metal?

[/quote]The Tech name I believe is 'weld mesh' any sheet metal fabricators stock some ????
[/quote]

I tried fitting the lower meshes with the bumper on and struggled getting the old ones out so I decided to take the bumper off to fit the new ones.

Tim

[ScottBarton]

My local independent BMW garage fitted my 3 sections for one hours labour. They managed it without taking the bumper off.... Very impressed! Saved me a job!