vsamma

Hi all,

I've been a proud owner of my 2017 Selenite Magno Grey C43 Coupe for 6 months now but noticed this weekend that I have accidentally ruined my Panamericana grille. It happened sometime last month and quite probably during one or many car washes.
I've been only power washing my car in the self-service stations with only 2 exceptions, once in Autumn I brought the car to a proper detailing shop and once in March I also visited a car-wash in a gas station (it was the type where one side of your wheels are "locked" in a track and it automatically moves you through the wash) where I opted for a brushless/contactless wash.
From my phones photo reel I noticed that there might have been some small bits of plastic coating gone in the beginning of March already, but on the pics from the end of March, the whole grille and each of its fins is straight up ruined, so I don't know if most of it came from the automatic car wash or from my bad washing with a power washer.

Anyways, now I'm here and I'm wondering if there's any way to salvage this grille or even any point?
or should I just swap it out and pay a few hundred bucks.

Considering that my wheels and hub caps were just ruined 1 week ago when changing for summer tires, it's already too many problems for one week

Ramsino

I can't really tell from your picture but it looks like you can just peel the coating off of the front of all of those pieces and carefully wrap them again. Is this gloss black? You can just buy something like this and do it yourself or if you want the entire grille done then you might be able to bring it to the shop:

vsamma

yeah, it definitely seems to be glossy.

i actually looked up the grille on google and it seems like all chrome ones have 2 chrome lines on one fin and middle is black and also not level.
and on mine and all other black grilles it seems like the fin is covered with a wrap or a thin plastic layer (which means that the middle part is hollow behind the wrap/plastic and therefore it broke so easily.

i thought if i’d peel it off, i’d probably end up with that regular chrome grille and then yeah i could let it be wrapped maybe.


but then again it seems a thicker plastik than just a wrap, but not sure. And it doesn’t seem to be easily removable.

But i guess I should consult a wrapping/painting company.

superswiss

Is this an OEM grill or a cheap Chinese replica? The OEM grill has some chromish pieces on each fin. I suppose it's possible that they were ripped off by an automated carwash, but not a touchless one, unless the adhesive was really cheap, but this looks more like somebody ripped them off intentionally.

vsamma

hmm.. if i had to guess, it’s not an OEM one. It was there when I bought the car but it has like cheap MAM 20 inch wheels so i’m sure the grille is cheap as well.

tbh to me, all the grilles look the same shape, same fins, only difference seems like the black ones have wrap on top of the chrome.

And it’s not about the adhesive because when touching the non-broken parts, i can feel that there is empty space behind it, so the middle of the fin has plastik that just covers the middle crevice or w/e and has nothing to stick to.

So you’re saying somebody just randomly approached the car and started damaging the fins? Would be a very specific part to damage.. like you’d have to know it’s an easy place to damage. Otherwise you’d just key the car or sth

and i haven’t gone to automatic car washes and washed with brushes.

i’m sure it’s caused by pressure washers, maybe in combination with cold temps, who knows..