I have scoured the forums for threads about the Mina Gallery front chrome grille for a 2009 XK.Not found a lot of info. Still undecided if I go with theirs or the OEM from Jaguar. Anyone have experience with either. Easy to self install? Costs etc

 

Hi. I used a Mina black wire grill for my '11 XKR. It was certainly pretty enough but replacing the grill is a production of epic proportions and in the end I had a smash repairer to do it. While Mina say you can effectively pull it out it involves the likely breaking of the OEM brackets and I wasnt prepared to try so the nose cone had to come off. Having zero skill in the workship I gave it to someone else to do, and they said it was a mission as well.

Now what you have to bear in mind is that the OEM grill is plastic maybe 10mm deep. The mina grill is wire maybe 2mm deep. So you have to screw steel angle brackets into the nose of the XKR to then fix the wire grill onto them. That's all fine save that in my case you could see the silver car inside the black grill which looked silly so I put some black wrap behind it which fixed that. You might not need to.

The OEM version would probably fit tighter, but I had no trouble with the mina one other than ocasionally tightening the screws holding it into the brackets.

I found Mina quality to be very good and the prices were excellent. We had significant delay with delivery and a bit of confusion there but Chris threw in some goodies and bear in mind he was sending to Australia so all told I was very happy with the service and figure it would have been easier to follow up if I was in the US.

 

Just wanted to post up two pics of what's holding the factory stuff in and what each piece looks like. There are a bunch of tabs in the nose for the grill to slide over and slots in the nose for the lower grill to slide over. The self locking U clips slide over the tabs to secure them.



I painted mine with aluminum paint which looked a lot better than the drab chipped up factory silver. Also note in the pic below that the TPMS wiring harness is clipped to the grill. The nose is under the blanket in this picture.


Pulling the nose isn't horrible with the exception that Jaguar used compression nuts across the top bow and I had a couple that spun out due to corroded hardware. Put it on jack stands first and have a blanket to sit the nose on once it's free. Pull the belly pan (bunch of bolts), head lamps (3 bolts each) front inner fenders (dozen torx bolt each) gets you access to the inner fender nose bolts (4-5 on each side) and it'll slide off.

 

Interesting. The OEM isnt much more than the Mina in cost. Maybe $70 or so. I really don't fancy pulling the nose cone off.

 

Why would you not go with OEM? Use Jaguar parts as much as possible on a Jaguar. Keeps the car from looking *******ized with aftermarket stuff.

 

One of the reasons to use the Mina grille over o.e.m. is that it's metal not plastic and less susceptible to rocks or other objects damaging it. I had to replace my lower grill once because of this. When I installed the F/X bumper on the rear of my 2010, I went over to Chris at Mina, got a couple of wire mesh grilles, cut them to fit, and had them installed as I detested the honeycombed plastic inserts that came with the bumper, they just looked so cheap. The metal grille looks so much better.

 

I had the black OEM wire grill installed on my 07 XK.... Love it.

When I bought my 2010 XKR, Jag did not have an OEM replacment for the plastic, so I bought the Mina. As Bruce points out, it was a royal pain to swap,and I damaged the paint around the opening a bit doing so.
Mina brackets were worthless IMHO, so I fabricated my own. Looks good once you spend a day or two getting the job done.... If I were to do it over, I'd pull the nose.

Vince