W221 S600 FRONT GRILLE

[Chris1965SD]

I've become the custodian of an immaculate 2010 S600L with the full AMG kit and just over 71k miles.
Immaculate apart from the front grille. I say custodian as my former neighbour has moved and asked me to look after his car until it is sold at some point.

My previous Mercedes over the past 30 years have been a 560SEL and then a 560SEC and more latterly covered 75k miles in a couple of 2016 A class diesels.

I have to say the 600 is rather surprising and far more frugal than I expected with 19-21mpg being typical.
I used it for a 150 mile commute into central London last week and averaged 19.3 for the day which is not bad.

Imagine my surprise when I washed the car last week and discovered the grille was only coated with a very thin layer of shiny chrome lookalike and appears to have a plastic / composite base! The coating is lifting and delaminating which is unsightly. It is in random places with small areas lifting.

Is the coating failure common?

Is the only remedy to replace the grille?

 

[219]

I've become the custodian of an immaculate 2010 S600L with the full AMG kit and just over 71k miles.
Immaculate apart from the front grille. I say custodian as my former neighbour has moved and asked me to look after his car until it is sold at some point.

My previous Mercedes over the past 30 years have been a 560SEL and then a 560SEC and more latterly covered 75k miles in a couple of 2016 A class diesels.

I have to say the 600 is rather surprising and far more frugal than I expected with 19-21mpg being typical.
I used it for a 150 mile commute into central London last week and averaged 19.3 for the day which is not bad.

Imagine my surprise when I washed the car last week and discovered the grille was only coated with a very thin layer of shiny chrome lookalike and appears to have a plastic / composite base! The coating is lifting and delaminating which is unsightly. It is in random places with small areas lifting.

Is the coating failure common?

Is the only remedy to replace the grille?

That really is shocking on what is a range topping prestige car !
I can understand lesser cars having plastic grilles , but surely not an S-Class .
I fear that you are correct and replacement might be the only option , I also fear that a new grille wouldn’t be cheap from MB .
Is it all of one piece , or is it a shell with an insert , and even replaceable ribs as on earlier models ?
Could you get away with just replacing parts of it ? Maybe a good used grille from a car that was rear-ended ? There are specialist breakers like MercMan or Rob Parker who might be able to help .
Or might you find a specialist company who can apply fake chrome to plastic - there are some amazing small companies around .
Last resort , rub off the fake chrome and have the grille sprayed silver ?

 

[Chris1965SD]

Thanks for the reply.

It appears to be a clip on insert in the bonnet. The MB emblem looks like it can be removed. I've not located the connector for the distronic but know it's lurking.

It seems the manufacturing method is Chrome Plate Injection Moulding. So I'm guessing the coating is microns thick! As the grille has distronic mounted I suspect the new replacement won't be cheap either. Cause of failure could be the difference in thermal expansion and contraction between the base material and the coating over time or simple weathering. Not sure yet.

However now I know roughly how it was made, I will investigate how to re-coat the original. If not, I will try the two specialists you recommend.

I will report back!

 

[KillerHERTZ]

The grill is like that for pedestrian safety reasons, if it was 'proper' chrome/non bendable metal it would rip limbs off.