Login Register

Painted Grille

Post Reply
benpineapple
Posts: 313
Joined: 03 Nov 2015, 13:01
Year and Model: '06 V50 T5, '13 XC90
Location: MI
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by benpineapple »

Hello, a while back I was kind of sick of the all-chrome front grille on my '98 V70, so I thought I'd make it look like one of the newer grilles, by painting only the vertical bars on the grill. I removed the badge/cross, and masked off the entire border of the grille, and painted the vertical bars black, and finished them with a durable satin enamel paint.
v70grill_black.jpg
v70grill_silver.jpg
Because of the distinct '90s look of the V70, I thought the black grille made it look like a Ford Taurus, so I ended up painting it back to chrome a few weeks later.

But hey! If you're curious what it looks like, et voila! An easier solution would be to just nab an egg crate grille from a 2000 XC, but hey, the vertical bar grille design is nice.

Cheers!
2006 V50 T5 [190,xxxM]
2013 XC90 FWD [80,xxxM]

2001 V70 X/C AWD [sold at 120xxxM],1998 V70 AWD [RIP at 249,255M], 1990 240 [SOLD at 220xxxM]

j-dawg
Posts: 1154
Joined: 20 Apr 2013, 10:56
Year and Model: 1999 V70 T5
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 33 times

Post by j-dawg »

Neat! Thanks for the pictures. I've been toying with ideas for my own grille, and this was one of them. I'm probably the only person who doesn't think the XC grille looks cool on a not-XC, and I'm not a fan of the black mesh grille either. I might be striking this one off the list, too.

The best idea to me right now is just leaving it as-is. While one might expect the chrome grille would look wrong on a car with no other chrome, it actually works fine in practice.
1999 V70 T5 5-SPD | ~277k mi | sold

User avatar
850 LPT
Posts: 1973
Joined: 27 May 2011, 08:05
Year and Model: 98' S70, 5-speed
Location: CT
Has thanked: 335 times
Been thanked: 247 times

Post by 850 LPT »

I too think that the waterfall grill (they way it comes from the factory) works perfectly fine on the non XC cars, plus it's been a Volvo feature for so long, and it makes these cars stand out in the crowd.
Volvo even brought the look back on the new XC90, which is interesting, because the XC line of cars never had them to begin with.

But of course it's all a matter of personal taste.
98' S70, base, 5-speed manual, pewter/ tan, 148k miles
06' V70, auto, willow green/ charcoal, 161k miles
79' Ford Capri S, Euro Spec 2.8 V6, T9 5-speed manual, owned since 1986
58' Porsche Diesel Junior
13' Honda Odyssey :oops:
84' Mercedes 300 D, gold/ tan, 420k miles (retirement project :D )

mecheng
Posts: 1271
Joined: 27 Mar 2014, 19:49
Year and Model: 1998 Volvo S70 T5
Location: Ontario, Canada
Has thanked: 15 times
Been thanked: 21 times

Post by mecheng »

I like my painted grill, never heard anyone going back to Chrome!
1998 Volvo S70 T5 - SE - 240km - Sold July 2018
1997 Volvo 850 GLT - 190km
Boost is my drug of choice

Matt88ch
Posts: 45
Joined: 30 Oct 2016, 09:44
Year and Model: 2000 s70 glt se
Location: East Hampton CT

Post by Matt88ch »

I love how mine came out
Attachments
This is mine I took off Volvo emblem and left the lip chrome and rest sprayed black
This is mine I took off Volvo emblem and left the lip chrome and rest sprayed black

User avatar
abscate
MVS Moderator
Posts: 36147
Joined: 17 Feb 2013, 17:54
Year and Model: 99: V70s S70s,05 V70
Location: Port Jefferson Long Island NY
Has thanked: 1610 times
Been thanked: 4065 times

Post by abscate »

When you come around on this, Ive got a nice one off my parted out 99 you can buy...

:-)
Empty Nester
A Captain in a Sea of Estrogen
1999-V70-T5M56 2005-V70-M56 1999-S70 VW T4 XC90-in-Red
Link to Maintenance record thread

clifford06
Posts: 348
Joined: 01 Aug 2013, 17:03
Year and Model: 2000 T5
Location: texas
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by clifford06 »

Greetings. The repaint looks great ! I did my " repaint"" with a can of "flexi paint ". I used flexi paint in case I didn' t like the look, and could take it off . Good work !!

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post