Hi,
I have chrome fender vents on my 2009 XF SC. I have seen others with body colored. Was on standard and the other an option? No cost option?
Were they randomly done ? Just curious about the differences.
Thanks,
Etip

 

I believe they went to body color with the 2012 facelift. Probably wrong.

 

Chrome ones was option

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Why would chrome be an actual option..hahaha

 

yeah chrome was the option, body color was standard. ive seen the chrome, its gross!

 

In the 1960's, you ordered individual options. The last 30 years you picked a trim level and within each trim level were option packages that usually included the one thing you wanted and ten others you didn't. Then there are individual "accessories", usually stuff very easily tacked on like a spoiler or floor mats.

http://www.auto-brochures.com/makes/...%20XF_2009.pdf

Brochure calls chrome vent an "accessory" which means it was probably dealer-installed.

 

Bingo!!!


I VERY fondly remember those days of being able to order options individually!! My wife liked the chrome fender vents, so the dealer did the 'swap' on our 2009 XF (the original vents were body color)..........

 

Some people chose to add chrome vents as aftermarket add ons (Carbon fiber too). Usually involves removing the body colored one and replacing it. Although I remember someone saying they bought chrome ones that just stuck on top with automotive tape. So worth a quick look to see if perhaps it's just a chrome stick on that you can replace

If you want to go back to body color they are easy to swap out (although might end up costing more than it's worth). You could prob have them sprayed body colour pretty cheaply too

 

My car is silver and with the chrome grill and front slats under grill, I have grown to like the chrome fender vents. I get that some people don't though....

 

I put stick on chrome vent covers on both my XFS and XFR, they fitted so well you could not tell that were not OEM.
If you have the stick on covers I don't like your chances of getting them off without damaging the underlying panels, either by pulling paint off or breaking/bending/cracking the panel, they are stuck incredibly hard. Maybe, just maybe, you can soften the adhesive with a heat gun enough to get them off without causing any damage.
If you have the OEM chrome panels then yes in theory they can be removed and replaced with body coloured panels, but I've read a few stories about how it is difficult to remove them without breaking a few clips.

 

Always thought certain colors look best with chrome vents. I've had all my trim painted gloss black, even roof, and went with carbon details. But I had my chrome vent covers sprayed black at that time as well. Very tuxedo! Looked great.

 

From what my dealer told me, these pieces are installed with a "one way", snap-in pin arrangement. When they took the OE parts off our car, to install the chrome parts, they used a trim removal "pry tool" and just popped off the OE parts. This effectively broke the pins, rendering the old parts useless. They said that if I wanted them to remove them without damaging them, they'd have to remove the fenders, to access the back side of the pins.....

 

Not surprising. Cars today are designed to go together like those Snaptite plastic models for kids ages 5 to 8. Speeds up human assembly tasks plus its far cheaper to make a robot that can snap a part into place than to make a robot that can attach the same part with four screws. Its one of the factors that will hamper the auto restoration hobby when modern cars are 30 to 50 years old. Unless some company in Taiwan makes all those plastic parts and clips in reproduction, then its going to really tough to restore a modern car or even get one repainted. We can only hope that 3d printing technology will allow one-off reproduction of trim parts some day. If you want to change, then you probably need to buy the parts now while they are still available (if they're not already obsolete).

 

I knew this thread would become relevant. Arranged to purchase a 2012 Portfolio with a mere 28,000 miles, picking it up in a week. BUT it has the chrome vents and I think I'd prefer them standard body color. Looking at the Jaguar parts catalog, it shows they are attached with a clip $3.25 and a fastener $2.20. Those chrome vents are expensive at $226 each so I figured I could recoup some of the cost of swapping and painting by selling the chrome ones on ebay so long as they can be removed without damage. Also there are many of the standard ones available on ebay tho sellers seem to want almost as much as the new ones at $132. Anyone know if its those clips/fasteners that are the sacrificial part or something breaks where the clip attaches to the vent itself when pried? Seems like it ought to be easy to access the back side by removing the wheel well liner, but there's no good illustration to show how they work (sometimes clips can be a bear even if you can get to them).

 

There are two different types of compression clips for the side vents which do break quite often during removal. I have never tried doing it from behind but is sure worth the effort to find out. These little plastic clips are ridiculously expensive but certainly necessary.

I would keep my eyes out on ebay for a set of the exact same paint color since it would save you a lot of painting costs.

 

The common white, silver and black are on there now, but I could be waiting years for "Caviar" to show up. However, I restore classic cars as a hobby so I have connections for paint. Taking old, frozen cars apart without irreparably damaging some dainty little holy grail of parts is the kind of thing I fret about.