I pulled the trigger on a billet grill tonight. I have been considering many different mods to the HHR to be named later, but this one appealed to me because I could bolt it on and if I don't like it, I can easily remove it. The stuff stuck on with 3M tape scares me a bit.

I will post picks as soon as it gets here.

 

Be sure to do that, we all what to know which one you decided to get.

 

By the way, if anyone bids on the upper and lower billet grilles on Ebay with the $55 shipping, only bid $20 you will get a second chance offer from the seller, making your total shipped, $75.00 for both. Lots of people are paying more! LS

 

Those ones, you really get what you pay for.

 

So which one are you getting?

I thought all of these grills were bolt-on's?

 

The Carriage Works Billet grill requires cutting up the stock grill.

 

It was the Ebay one. I payed 45 for it making it $100.00 shipped. If I don't like it, no big deal. I looked at the carriage works grill, but decided against it because I didn't want to cut up my OEM grill. I may want to go back to it.

I may end up adding a border to this one. At least at the top. I will have to spend some quality time at the hobby shop here on base to get that just right.

I will be sure to post some pictures as soon as the grill gets here. That way other folks will be able to make a call as to whether or not it's worth it.

 

I also bid on , and won, the upper and lower billet grilles on eBay with the 55 dollar shipping. My winning bid was 26 dollars for a total of 81.

I won't feel too bad if the fit and finish is slightly off - after all, you get what you pay for. I can always go back to the OEM grille. I really wanted to get some protection going for the AC condenser and radiator in the lower regions.

WR

 

They came in today. And you do really get what you pay for.

First impressions out of the box were pretty good actually. The grill was mostly straight with only a few uneven spaces between bars. It had a nice shine to it as well. I was shorted two washers for the top grill instalation, and the "machine screws" that were provided for the corners are useless as they have no heads. So, after a bit of scrounging in my tool box I came up with some washers and one machine screw that was a suitable sub.

According to the directions, you are supposed to remove the entire OEM grill, and then paint the metal behind it flat black (particularly if you have a light colored car. As I am not a fan of spraying flat black paint anywhere near my glossy SOM car, I decided to do a slight mod to the instructions and use the black plastic trim instead. I also figured that it might add some small bit of protection from the grill rubbing the paint as well. I test fit the grill with and without the plastic trim and there was hardly any difference in the way it fit, so the trim went in.

The upper grill uses three small screws to mount it to the hood. None of the screws uses any of the holes used by the OEM mound. Instead, they use the holes for the guide pins. You are supposed to slide U nuts onto the hood at the guide pin holes, insert the screws loosely, and then tighten down a bit after centering the grill. It took a few tries to get it close to center, but it did work better than I thought it would. The U clips came up a bit short on the holes, but the screws have pointy tips and were able to pull them into place.

Once in place, I started working on the lower screws. These were a pain to align as I was making a second deviation from the instructions. I wanted to include the bar that stretches across the bottom of the grill as I like the idea of the rubber pads being there to protect my bumper at the bottom of the grill. I had to thread the screw through four separate holes in order to get it through and none of them wanted to line up. A bit of patient scribe work solved that problem and I was finally able to move on to the bottom.


The lower grill mounts via two brackets that go from the top to the bottom of the bumper opening in back. All you have to do to mount it is put some U nuts on the brackets, slide the screws throught the mount holes on the grill, and tighten them down. This means that the bracket is actually pressing against the paint in the bumper opening. I'm not so sure that I'm keen on that mounting concept. I see it rubbing the paint off in no time It was easy to mount though.

Now it's picture time. these are crappy garage photos, but they will have to do for now.


Here it is in all of it's shiny glory.



The obvious gap on the side.



Here you can see one of the small mounting screws.



This pic shows what I was/maybe still am planning on doing with a vinyl Chevrolet text that I picked up around the same time I ordered this. Either that or it's going on the top bar of the OEM grill.

so, there you have it. Now when you look at that on Ebay, you will have a much better idea of what your getting than before. Is it perfect? Hell no. But for what most people seem to be paying for them, they do seem to fit the bill. If you want real quality, check out something else. If you are cool with OK quality, this grill is a real option.

I'm not sure that I'm OK with it. I'll have to sleep on it, I'm going to bed!

 

The lower grill mounts via two brackets that go from the top to the bottom of the bumper opening in back. All you have to do to mount it is put some U nuts on the brackets, slide the screws throught the mount holes on the grill, and tighten them down. This means that the bracket is actually pressing against the paint in the bumper opening. I'm not so sure that I'm keen on that mounting concept. I see it rubbing the paint off in no time It was easy to mount though.

How about using a small piece of rubber(ie: inner tube ) between bracket and body. I have a bracket mounted on my Harley(know for good vibrations) and glued a small piece of inner tube on the mounting bracket. It's been 2yrs. and still hasn't chipped the paint.