Yea the sport models have the paint matched outer grill with black vanes, right? The regular x-types are chrome with chrome vanes. Anyways I am happy with my black grill but ironically it turns out right after I painted I found a good deal on a facelift grill!

 

Howdy,
Yes, I did my lower front Grille (DIY) a while ago now to match the upper and it always looks great - check it out here;

Jaguar Forums - Jaguar Enthusiasts Forum - Lcgi's Album: X-Type (DIY - Lower Grill)

 

That's pretty good. I thought about doing the front grill diy with universal mesh but everyone on here said no, don't do it, it won't look good, it won't look authentic. So I decided not to, but your lower grill I can barely tell it was homemade, only because you told me. At first look, it just looks like the normal mesh kits. Black fades in better too. I think the silver grills stand out more and you can really see the shape of the mesh. I was at Lowes the other day and looked at their mesh wire just for fun. It looked pretty good but it was real flimsy aluminum stuff and a lot of the meshes were already bent. If any kind of pebble or bug hit it it would bend. I know they sell some universal mesh on ebay that is better stuff but all in all I think I would just opt for the Mina upper grill, since they are less than $100 and look like an oem sport part. The lower grills are like twice that though so if you get both it's kind of expensive.

 

Hey 04xtype04!, I did the Menards/HomeRepo run and got sone 1/4” wire mesh and some black plastic 1/4” garden type fencing crap and double layered it in an angled pattern and cut to fit .. And then I made fog light covers out of the plastic chit! I swear it looks boss! Need to post pics. Was gonna buy online, but then thought I could do better than the crap they sell at Pep Boys… No chrome on my 03 sport… thanx! Check out Lcgi’s..his looks great!

 

Your cars look great you guys!…… “*******," as we say in Chicago!

 

Peter's being the Sport already had the upper mesh grille, so he retro fitted the lower mesh to compliment it......



Hi did think briefly about the upgraded grille but wasn't to his taste

In the process of drilling out a spare rear bootlid plinth then painting to match body colour and adding leds so that JAGUAR lights up in the dark

 

That's cool. I like it. Nice touch with the spoiler and led's. When I first got my car I heard about that mod and thought all x-types lit up the word "Jaguar" on the back and I checked to see and realized it must be a custom thing because mine didn't have it.

 

I'd think I'd like to just paint the vanes so the difference in the black on the vanes and the hood would be divided by the chrome. I don't have the sport model so maybe some matching chrome makes sense. Would dull or shiny paint look better on the vanes?

 

I used gloss black rustoleum, but sanded the chrome vanes first with some medium fine sand paper I had around. It looks good though. Once I put it back in it looked completely stock except blacked out. Adds a cool little touch to the typical x-type look. Too bad I won't be keeping the stock grill long but it was a good learning experience. I wish I had done it sooner but I didn't want to modify the car from stock at first. Now I'm just like ehh, it's mine why not.

 

I'm new to this but here we go;i have a 2002 Jag/x/2.5 white.just got her so i'm working on her slowly.Any help ,or ideas welcome ty.